Bob's Discount Furniture expands with the use of demountable truck bodies

Fleet Equipment, Mar 2001

Since its birth in 1991, Bob's Discount Furniture has expanded into a 300,000-sq.-ft. distribution center with 18 stores throughout CT, MA and NH. Bob's Discount Furniture's sales increased by almost 20 percent from 1998 to 1999, and there are current plans to expand the distribution center by 25 percent. In order to keep up with this explosive growth, they are switching from the conventional delivery trucks to the Demountable Truck Body System manufactured by Demountable Concepts, Inc.

According to Lee Goodman, the Operations manager at Bob's Discount Furniture, "The distribution center in Taftville, CT, holds enough inventory for all 18 stores. At the distribution center, demountable bodies are loaded all day by our employees for tomorrow's deliveries. Each night, drivers from our dedicated transfer service, Airways Truck Leasing, back specialized trailers underneath the full bodies and take them to their respective stores in Bridgeport, Stamford and Brookfield, CT, as well as West Springfield and Lowell, MA." Each trailer takes two bodies at a time, and each store gets four full bodies per night. At the store, they swap the full bodies with the empty ones left from the previous day's home deliveries and take them back to the distribution center. When the next workday begins, the local drivers at each store mount the full bodies and are ready for home deliveries. The cycle continues as the empty bodies are back at the distribution center getting loaded for the following day's deliveries.

"By using the Demountable Truck Body System, we make the transfer of full bodies from the distribution center with such ease that it is almost invisible to Bob's," states Robert Duprey, the Operations manager for Airways Truck Leasing in Windsor Locks, CT. Duprey also believes that, "having one distribution center allows Bob's Discount Furniture to keep their finger on the pulse of their business by maintaining one high-quality warehouse, one loading staff, one inventory center and one customer service department."