Denver—After a 35-year stint on Brighton Boulevard, Drive Train Industries (DTI), an aftermarket parts distributor, commercial truck repair facility, and component rebuilder, has relocated its headquarters to a single, modern facility in northeast Denver.
A 97,000-square-foot facility at 5555 Joliet St. is the new home to DTI, an organization that began serving Denver in the mid-40s. Shortly after Labor Day, the logistical problems of operating a three-part business under multiple rooftops in Denver, Arvada, and Commerce City were largely solved, said Jim Burke, president and CEO of DTI.
During the two-year planning process, DTI General Manager Bruce Sommerville said he visited many of their parts suppliers’ warehouses—Gates, SKF, Arvin Meritor—to glean ideas for their new facility. Although DTI’s business is unique, several of the ideas resonated, he said. “This created a watershed moment for efficiency. “We can now pull a transmission off a truck, rebuild it 100 feet away, and then reinstall it,” Burke said, adding that plant efficiency is much greater and inventory is closer to service technicians.
The Denver location serves as headquarters for DTI, which also operates parts and service operations in Greeley, Fort Collins, Grand Junction, and Colorado Springs, in Wyoming at Gillette, Casper, and Rock Springs and in Albuquerque.
“We have plenty of room for expansion,” Sommerville said. “We’re right in the heart of the new industrial area for Denver now.”
“It has also changed the attitude of our people,” Burke said, adding that they’re excited to work in a new, clean building.
The logistics of moving machining equipment, service equipment, and millions of dollars in parts inventory had its challenges, Burke said.
In one of the big challenges, moving parts inventory, Burke said, the 45,000 SKUs were labeled by the depth of their size 12, 18, and 24 inches.
Shedding the old cinder block-plywood shelves of the previous building, Burke said, shelving was purchased to house the parts in the new facility’s 24-feet of accessible vertical space for heavier parts such as brake drums and reman transmissions and differentials, many of which remanufactured by Weller, who is also an authorized Allison remanufacturer.
To access the higher shelves, Sommerville said DTI purchased two new forklifts that can be programmed to pick or place a pallet on any given shelf. That reduces the chance of product damage or employee injury, he said.
Since 7,000 of the businesses SKUs are 2 inches or less, 40 used, high-density Stanly Vidmar shelving units were purchased from a defunct parts supplier in Detroit, Burke said.
The shelves each have the capacity to contain 64 cubic inches of space for parts that were previously stored in plastic bins, Sommerville said.
A relic from the previous Denver warehouse, the shopping carts with skateboards welded to the rear are still used, but employees no longer carry paper pull tickets, which have been replaced with handheld guns that scan inventory labels, he said.
In the component-rebuild area of the building, the machine shop and hydraulic rebuild shops have been combined, Burke said. The teardown and exchange can occur right in the same spot now, he said.
This portion of the business is sealed off from the warehouse with a garage door, to keep noise and dust down, Burke said.
Now in the truck service department, parts can be pulled and walked over, instead of being delivered via truck to their Arvada and Commerce City service centers, Sommerville said.
The shop can house 14 trucks at any given time and even accommodate a tractor and trailer, Burke said, adding that an overhead Accent Exhaust System was installed by Automotive Equipment Supply that makes it easier to use on vertical truck exhaust stacks.
