Hemlock Hill RV’s New Facility Keys in on Service Excellence – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
SOUTHINGTON, Conn. – Hemlock Hill RV celebrated the grand opening of its new dealership building on Oct. 24, replacing the original sales and service building located at 2123 Meriden Waterbury Turnpike. The new facility, which took a year to complete, has been in the planning stages since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The whole project started out just building a service center, and then as we started looking into it, the designer threw out an idea of a building with a whole new service center and a dealership,” said Chris Andro, co-owner of Hemlock Hill. “So, we built 16 bays that are 52 feet deep and 20 feet wide. We can fit toolboxes on one end and feed from the center out, kind of like in manufacturing from the center out to work on the trailers. On every single pole, we put 50-, 30-, 15-amp water, cable, air – everything you could think of to make these things work the way they’re supposed to work.”
Going into their 40th year, the Andro family’s second generation continues to run the towable RV dealership, which sells about 500 units annually and averages 200 repair orders monthly, Andro said. The dealership sells 45 brands of new RVs from nine manufacturers.
The service department currently has eight technicians, with six bays in the old building, Andro said, which meant that techs had to work outside. Also, the parts department was very cramped, and interaction between the parts and service teams was inefficient. The new 29,470-square-foot facility corrects the workflow, with two bays dedicated to stocking manufacturer service parts, reducing repair event cycle time (RECT).
“We’re looking to gain efficiency by having the parts in the same actual space as the techs are working in, and having the shop foreman where he should be, and having our internal parts coordinator who gets all the parts forward, all the jobs and coordinates with the parts manager who orders all the parts,” Andro said.
In addition to service and parts, the new facility’s front end features an ample sales space with cubicles for each team member, customer service and parts counters, and space for a new parts store, which Mike Keller of Keller Marine and RV is coordinating and designing.
The second floor includes a state-of-the-art training space and finance and management offices. Andro says all departments will be moved in and working by the return from the holiday break.
