
Pat Feeney
The industrial dock and door industry continue to evolve at a blistering pace. While Robert Dietrick Company continues to evolve with it, our industry continues to become more demanding and technologically comprehensive. The challenge now is how we can build on our reputation of service excellence and streamline the process of information and experience transferal.
While countless, complex variables have been added to a technician’s job over the past two decades, the objective is still to service and install industrial equipment correctly, safely, and with great customer service. Maintaining excellence, regardless of which technician was dispatched to a job, is crucial. Customers are indifferent to the tenure of a technician – they desire their equipment installed or serviced effectively. To do this, we lean on training – both for new teammates, as well as for continued education with our veteran Service Technicians.
As a Service Manager, one of my most important objectives is to maintain exceptional service across the spectrum of experience levels. RDC has dedicated a portion of our Columbus warehouse specifically for product training. The Training Center has several pieces of current and legacy equipment from Rite-Hite Manufacturing, as well as vendors. All of this equipment is built on free-standing steel structures mounted to the floor and is 100% operational.
The purpose of this training center is to provide a controlled environment where we can perform troubleshooting and repair scenarios. We intend to shorten the learning curve of new hires and teach them how to service industrial equipment the RDC way – safety ALWAYS. We also incorporate ServiceMax, our asset-centric field service management software. We simulate jobs for trainees from start to finish, and they will apply asset tags to each piece of equipment and learn to consume parts correctly from our inventory after troubleshooting and repairing the equipment.
With the implementation of the RDC Training Center in Columbus, IN, we will preserve our reputation of service excellence.