A lot has been happening with Southern Field, including opening a new warehouse in Jacksonville, Florida, and acquiring Environmental Elements, a leading provider of air pollution control technology.
We sat down with team members Mimi Priesman, Jeff Chudd, and Steve Moore to ask them a few questions about these developments. Their combined responses are below:
How has it been to get all of the EEC OEM parts engineering under one roof, and how has it helped your department?
It is an exciting new opportunity for increasing our line of customer service. We are not only able to expand our service to existing customers by providing OEM replacement parts, but we are also getting many new customers as the OEM supplier offers us the opportunity to grow our service business. We have experienced a marked increase in revenue & profitability. The combined larger warehouse has allowed us to begin to grow our stocked items reducing or even eliminating the lead time for the end user.
Why was the decision made to open a warehouse in Jacksonville?
Jacksonville offers a deep water port, an international airport, and major shipping lanes (I-95, I-10, etc.) which gives us deeper discounts. These discounts result in lower prices which we pass on to our customers at cost. We also have a high concentration of clients in the Southeastern U.S. Plus, the southern location makes winter weather hazards less of an issue for transporting our freight.
What is your favorite part of working with precipitator parts?
Diversity – never the same challenge twice. Clean air is important to all of us, and the opportunity to provide a service that makes the plant a better place to live is a bonus. We have helped our customers on the service side for years. When they go down with an emergency, they cannot operate until the repair is made. Now, when our crews go in for a service call, if they find parts that need to be replaced, we can go into the warehouse and expedite those parts. That results in getting the customer back online and operational even faster.
Tell our customers something about how efficient you are in shipping and delivery.
It is very common for us to ship an order on the same day we receive it, and we are proficient in getting expedited orders to our customers on-time, 24/7. If a customer has an emergency and we have the part, we take care of them. We were limited with our logistical options in Arden and Malvern. Jacksonville offers more opportunity because there are service centers for all national and regional freight carriers there. More options mean lower freight costs.
We’re excited about the new opportunities ahead – not just for Southern Field-EEC, but for our customers – and we look forward to providing top-notch customer service and maintenance well into the future.
Southern Field maintains vital equipment for the energy, pulp and paper, cement and lime, and steel and metals industries. Contact our team for more information on how professional, preventative plant maintenance can cut costs and risk – and save money.