RDO Equipment Co.'s consolidation of two John Deere equipment dealerships into a single new facility in Moorhead, Minn., presented a problem: How to quickly move two separate parts departments to a new location with a limited amount of space while leaving room for expansion. 

With double the inventory in one facility (each facility stored diverse products—one for agricultural and consumer products, the other for construction products), achieving organized storage required a system that allowed for fast, efficient retrieval of parts with minimal time spent walking up and down aisles.

“We considered a number of different storage options for the new location, including racking and shelving,” says Terry Burchill, aftermarket manager for the combined store.

In the old stores, parts were housed in a combination of steel shelves, pallet racks and display fixtures. The new store would require something considerably more efficient.

“We decided that cabinets would do the best job at optimizing the available space,” Burchill says.

RDO, a Tucson, Ariz.-based equipment dealership specializing in John Deere products, brought in Michael Fiorito, a storage sales engineer for Stanley Vidmar, Allentown, Pa., to create a layout for the new facility. Fiorito’s plan included back-to-back drawer units with overhead storage cabinets to maximize the use of available space, but also leave enough room above for a mezzanine, should RDO need additional storage in the future.

“The Vidmar cabinets will give us the opportunity to expand our storage capacity as we grow,” says Burchill.

Vidmar also helped make the move relatively painless. The cabinets came already assembled and fitted with drawer partitions specified by the customer. Rather than shipping the cabinets directly to the new store, Vidmar shipped them to the old locations, so that RDO could load them up before the move. They were delivered completely stocked to the new facility.

“The ability to pre-load the cabinets, then move them, is a big selling point,” says Fiorito. “If someone wants to re-locate their parts room, this is the way to do it.”

Additional cabinets came with overhead bins for the new special tools room.

“We fit our special tools from the two stores into a space the size of one of the old tool rooms,” says Burchill.

RDO is more than pleased with the efficiency the new storage system has brought to the business.

“The amount of space we’ve freed up is significant,” says Burchill. “Loading and delivering the Vidmar cabinets was the easiest part.”