KZ Settling in to New Facilities at Shipshewana Campus

The exterior of the new multi-purpose facility at the KZ RV campus. (Photos: Gary Gerard/RVBusiness)

KZ RV President Aram Koltookian, left, and Vice President of Service Operations Sean Andrews pose in the lobby of the new building.

SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. – With a nod toward heightened quality, improved customer service, and reduced repair event cycle times (RECT) KZ Recreational Vehicles, a division of THOR Industries Inc., is settling in to recently completed additions to its campus on U.S. 20 southwest of Shipshewana.

Completed in August, “The project was years in the making,” said KZ President Aram Koltookian. “We’re doing everything we can to improve the repair event cycle, to make sure that we’re doing a better job of stocking common parts. We want to stock more of the parts that need to get out quicker.”

The new facilities include a two-story, 30,000-square-foot warehouse space that will accommodate 5,000 additional SKUs, along with a 33,000-square-foot full-service repair facility with 10 service bays, four paint bays, a 24/7 customer lounge and camping area and a two-story, 12,000-square-foot Customer Service Welcoming Center. A new production area slated eventually for small, lightweight travel trailers is also part of the project.

Sean Andrews, vice president of service operations, said customer service was “bursting at the seams” prior to the expansion.

The new facility includes an expansive lounge area.

“Originally, customer service was in the building to the east of us, Plant No. 3. There was not enough room. It was half the square footage we have here.” he said. “We had taken our service department and displaced them to the southern building that has been renovated here and combined into this new building.”

The former Plant 3 now will accommodate small-trailer production and the new building will house the customer service call center, shipping and receiving, warehousing, service, pre-delivery inspection and a retail customer lounge – all under one roof, Andrews said.

Growing from a 70-acre campus to a 100-acre campus in the past year-and-a-half, Koltookian said KZ is “doing it right. I believe when you’re building infrastructure, you can’t build quality if you’re scattered. If you’re just manufacturing in any building, grabbing any warehouse you can find and just slapping together units. No. You need to make sure you have the right facilities and consistent people for consistent quality.”

The training room in the new facility can accommodate up to 50 “students.”

The right people at KZ, he said, include many team members who have been on board since before his arrival in 2014.

“Throughout this whole pandemic, we’ve had all of the same plant managers, senior managers, assistant plant managers, directors of operations, directors of purchasing, directors of engineering. They have been here for my entire time,” Koltookian said. “You have to have that consistency to build quality units. And if you’re jumping all over the place and starting up any factory in any building you can, what’s going into those products? We don’t do that. We maintain quality.”

The expansion was part of planned, organic growth, “to help us do a better of taking care of our dealers while we maintain the quality that we’ve been known for,” he said.

The upgrades aimed at RECT include two truck freight bays and the addition of a third freight company to speed up the shipping process. The added capacity will allow KZ to get parts out to dealers more quickly so completion of repairs can be expedited.

A 50-seat training room can accommodate dealers and service technicians from across North America to learn not only about KZ’s specialty components, but those from KZ suppliers as well. Two training sessions already were held in November and two more are scheduled in January.

Customers also were on KZ’s radar when planning the new facilities.

“We have a beautiful customer lounge for when units come in,” Koltookian said. “They have keyed access. They can come in and hang out. We put a washer and dryer in there for them and a big screen TV. They can do their laundry if they want while they’re waiting for their unit to be fixed. We think that’s kind of unique.”

The added production space will allow KZ to be ready when the market is ready, Koltookian said.

“We didn’t over produce last year. We know that this next coming year is going to be another fantastic year. KZ will gain market share,” he said. “We came out of Open House without losing a single dealer and I think that’s the key. You have to find a new way to gauge success in today’s market. What does success look like? For us it’s being measured with quality. The other measure is our dealer compliments. Dealer retention. Dealers took on whatever brands they could throughout the pandemic. Well now it’s time to drop brands and nobody dropped KZ. It’s a huge statement for them to have that confidence in our brands and I think that’s the yardstick right now.”

Andrews added, “It is extremely important to us to be able to take care of our dealer partners and customers alike, because we know that without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We’re thankful for their support and their business and wanted to do something to reflect our gratitude. We are continually searching for new ways to improve, and this was something that we felt would add value to their experience.”

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/kz-settling-in-to-new-facilities-at-shipshewana-campus/