An 11,000-square-foot training facility under construction at Roadtec Inc. will further the company's mission to put customers first, officials said.
The $1.6 million project on Manufacturers Road will be similar to a training facility at Astec Industries, Roadtec's parent company, and will allow both companies to simultaneously offer training sessions to customers.
"We believe in investing in our customers. When we teach them to operate our equipment efficiently, it leads to better roads," said J. Don Brock, Astec's chairman and chief executive. "That is good for our customers, the community and our company."
Officials at Roadtec began working on the facility's design about two years ago, but weren't given the go-ahead for construction until the industry started showing signs of rebounding, said Jeff Richmond, the company's president.
"The last two-and-a-half to three years have been difficult times for our industry," Richmond said. "We were fortunate to have the stimulus money, and fortunate to see our business relatively steady at a time when a lot of industries really suffered."
Coming off a sound financial year in 2009 and a promising start to 2010, construction began on the training facility in June and is scheduled for completion by Dec. 1.
Though it's No. 1 purpose is to enhance the customer experience, the facility also signals growth for the company, Richmond said.
"We feel like going into 2011, once we get a highway bill in front of Congress and the president, the nation is going to get refocused on infrastructure," he said.
With the specialized road building machinery the company manufactures, it's important for customers to receive proper training in order to operate the machines efficiently, Richmond said. The training program also fosters customer loyalty.
"It's absolutely critical for our customers when they buy a half-million dollar piece of machinery to be able to operate it properly," he said. "It's a huge investment, and it comes down to being a customer thing."
The new facility will replace a small training room that held about 30 people. The new, two-story training area will have enough space for more than 100 in its three training rooms, said Mike Bliss, director of manufacturing at Roadtec.
A large overhead door will allow trainers to bring in some of the company's paving machines for hands-on training opportunities. Bliss said this type of training can work through "what-if" scenarios and prepare customers for everyday problems they might encounter.
"If their machine breaks down in the middle of a pave, it stops everything," he said. "By giving our customer better knowledge of how to maintain his equipment, keep his equipment running, it's going to mean less break down for him, and less break down for him basically means a better product on the ground."
Prior to the facility's inception, Roadtec's large customer training workshops were held at Astec's training facility, but Astec also conducts workshops during that time. Both companies begin their service and customer training in December and hold training sessions nearly every week until March, Bliss said, which led to some difficulty in scheduling.
Richmond said the addition of this facility to Roadtec gives his customers "a world-class facility to come to in Chattanooga, right at the manufacturing source."
"The beauty of it is we do it at our own facility, with our own people, in the same location where we build the equipment, as opposed to being in a hotel boardroom somewhere," he said. "After three or four days, their knowledge of how to operate the machine is amplified considerably."