Safer field offices, please

Major electrical contractors discover the need for better job-site storage devices and a distributor in San Jose, Calif., helps alleviate the problem -- Industrial Distribution, 4/1/2001

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Greenlee Textron's new field office can store plans and blueprints, and allows space for keys and personal items to be locked up.

By Bridget McCrea, Contributing Editor

For contractors, tools, plans and blueprints are the very lifeblood of a project. Without them, workers can’t work, plans can’t be pored over and projects can’t be completed.

But tools are expensive and blueprints hard to duplicate, which means keeping track of such items while on a job site becomes a full-time job in and of itself.

To help alleviate the problem, a number of manufacturers have developed products known as “field offices” and “storage cabinets,” which contractors use while on the job site, and lock up safely at the end of the day. Equipped with heavy-duty locking devices, these boxes are heavy enough to deter anyone from throwing one on the back of a truck and driving off with it.

Such weight has both advantages and disadvantages, for when the time comes to move to another job site, a hoist is necessary for loading this heavy equipment. Recently, one of the nation’s largest electrical contractors ran into a problem during this process. While trying to relocate a field office box, the company realized that the unit itself was about one inch too wide for the vehicle. Full of tools, the box weighed about 1000 pounds, and was being raised by a small lift that allows the user to roll the box directly onto the truck.

Because the box was too wide for the vehicle, a portion of it hung over the lip of the truck. Unstable, the box ended up falling on one of the workers who was working to guide it onto the back of the truck. With an injured employee on its hands, the contractor decided to “never use one of the those boxes again,” according to Bob Driggers, territory manager for Greenlee Textron in Rockford, Ill., the manufacturer that would ultimately replace the problem box with one of its own.

“There are a lot of construction supply houses out there that cater to all types of contractors, but they’re too busy trying to be everything to everyone”
— Rod Gowett, Bay Tool and Supply

When Rod Gowett, president of Bay Tool and Supply in San Jose, Calif., heard about the incident, he saw an opportunity to introduce a new product to his customer. A full-line construction supply distributor that caters to the electrical contracting and HVAC industries, Bay Tool had long been servicing a niche that Gowett says previously “wasn’t being filled very well.”

“There are a lot of construction supply houses out there that cater to all types of contractors, but they’re too busy trying to be everything to everyone,” says Gowett. “I realized early on that you can’t do a very good job in any specific category by doing that, so we instead decided to go after the electrical and HVAC contractors.”

Today, Bay Tool stands by its philosophy and carries about $3 million in inventory, targeted specifically for air conditioning and mechanical contractors. Because of its focus, the distributor was a natural choice to help find a field box that would not cause another accident. And, for that particular end user, Gowett says Bay Tool had already set up a service-oriented program based not only on price, but on service and value added as well.

Already a Greenlee Textron distributor, Gowett grasped opportunity with both hands when he approached the unhappy end user to discuss the incident and suggest a viable alternative. Then, he went back to the Greenlee Textron to suggest modifications to its own product.

“We really work hard to service every customer, and to find out the good and the bad,” says Gowett. “From there, our job is to help fix the bad.”

Back to the drawing board

For this particular application, the “bad” was a competitor’s product that not only injured a worker, but one which also needed to fit on the back of the end user’s vehicle and include more user-friendly options.

As a starting point, Gowett approached Greenlee Textron with those requests. Realizing that its 8060 DLX Field Storage Unit was in need of a modification anyway, the manufacturer grasped the opportunity to completely overhaul its product.

According to Tomas Saavedra, Greenlee Textron’s senior product manager, the 8060 DLX deluxe field office is the largest box in the manufacturer’s line. Designed for use by the job site foreman, it’s intended to store plans, blueprints and a variety of reference materials. The product features a slanted table top area that serves two functions: the ability to present the blueprint plans easily in a position from which they can be read, and a way to keep them safe in a locked storage compartment under that slanted work area.

“The foreman can lock up keys, personal items and other valuable accessories under the table top,” says Saavedra. “At the same time they can have the storage box open so that other people on the construction site or team can come in and review the blueprints.”

As a result of brainstorming sessions with contractors, field sales, shop workers, welding professionals and distributors, features added to the 8060 DLX included finger-grooved door systems, a restructuring of the shelf heights and the redesign of the external portion of the box to include single-piece sidewalls (to provide better rigidity and stability).

But while Greenlee Textron was hard at work on its redesign – a process that took less than 12 months – the business was enjoyed by its biggest competitors. As a result of the changes, according to Saavedra, Greenlee Textron’s business has tripled on the 8060 DLX and almost doubled on the 5660L.

For the Bay Tool end user, Greenlee Textron shipped in – free of charge – the new and improved field box, right to the distributor. Gowett and his team turned it around and presented the new feature benefits to the electrical contractors, who purchased and approved the unit that same day.

That particular end user was not only impressed with the distributor’s efforts during the process, but also with the manufacturer.

“Greenlee Textron met with them and asked them questions, asked us questions, and got everyone involved in the modification process,” says Gowett. “More than price, a customer wants to be heard and wants to know that someone is listening to what they’re saying.”