Distributor Profile: The Sum of Its Parts

As an authorized dealer for many major brands, the ALL parts department is a one-stop shop for customers.

 

“I not only deal with parts, I deal with emergencies,” said Larry Jeppe, procurement director for the ALL Family at the corporate parts department in Cleveland. “When a part is needed, it will be treated as an emergency if it’s costing a customer downtime.” Crane manufacturers, customers of ALL, and even competitors call on ALL for parts when the need is crucial, knowing what a broad selection they have available at any given time.

 

With more than 50 years in the industry, ALL has acquired several smaller crane and lift companies, each with their own history of inventory systems, specialized mechanics, and tracking methods. Over the years, the company has unified its approach to parts and service so that both are available for any machine as quickly and efficiently as possible. For one of the biggest fleets on the continent, that’s no easy feat — but a unified system offers particular advantages to customers of the parts department.

 

“Because of the size of our fleet, we have the biggest variety of spare parts for every type of equipment,” said Jeppe. “We have parts for older machines and the newest equipment; everything you can think of from around 1964 on. We also have an enormous selection of pumps and motors, ready to go whenever they are needed.”

 

For the company’s 38 locations, the parts department’s efficiency relies on a series of hubs at seven ALL branches, regionally covering Canada, the Midwest, and the South, with Cleveland having the largest inventory. Parts and equipment are also tracked through the company-wide computer system, so each branch can know where to find the parts they need.

 

Rather than centralizing parts completely in Cleveland, the hub approach allows for faster repairs and reduces downtime. Wherever a machine is at work, when a part breaks, one of the hub locations nearby is likely to have a replacement. Owing to the size of ALL’s continental fleet, if the requested part is not in stock, it could be removed from an idle machine to immediately replace the broken part. Then a replacement part can be sent from Cleveland and put on the idle machine. 

 

This approach is increasingly rare, though, as each hub works to stock similar inventory. The ultimate benefit is to the customer, who gets the part quicker because of ALL’s network and deep fleet. “We probably have the largest hose and fitting selection of any crane company. These are crucial to every machine’s operation,” said Jeppe. “With all the manufacturers’ parts we stock, to be able to have them uniformly available across all hubs has been a huge, multi-year investment in the making.” That investment has paid off, as ALL has become the one-stop shop, even for its competitors. When anyone needs a part quickly, there’s no better choice. “We are self-sufficient,” said Jeppe. "We don’t have to wait for the store to open because we essentially have our own. And if we don’t have a part, we can make it.”

 

With more than 100,000 SKUs, ALL’s parts department stocks everything from the smallest nuts and bolts to fully built crane engines ready to ship. This is the benefit ALL’s customers get that others cannot provide. “If you are our customer, our parts inventory is YOUR parts inventory,” said Jeppe. “Our rebuild shop, our engine shop, our fabrication shops, tool and die shops, machine shops — you get all of it. And on the jobsite, we can provide the parts support you need for all of your equipment, not just the units you rented from us.” 

 

Whatever is needed to minimize downtime, ALL will provide. That’s what you get when you do business with ALL.  

 

To learn more about the ALL Family’s parts department, visit at www.craneparts.com or phone at 216-524-6550.

 

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