Powered by storage

Steel cabinets at West Coast Chopper, a high-end custom motorcycle maker, increase storage capacity 50%.

By Noël P. Bodenburg, Managing Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/1/2006

When West Coast Chopper outfitted its research and development room, it not only needed adequate storage, but plenty of counter space for working on high-end custom motorcycles. The company builds 10 to 15 motorcycles a year, which sell for $60,000 to $150,000 each to a clientele that includes celebrities such as Shaquille O'Neal, Kid Rock and model Tyson Beckford.

The long, narrow R&D room, measuring 30 x 120 feet in the Long Beach, Calif., art deco building, is outfitted with a compact workbench wall and an island workbench/part storage system (Stanley Vidmar).

The storage system increased the building's storage capacity by 50%, compared with the old, existing equipment.

The new department includes islands in the center of the room that combine parts storage with butcher block work surfaces. A smaller island installed near a lathe and mill on one of the long walls gives workers a place to spread out interchangeable parts for the machines. The opposite wall is lined with a continuous row of shallow depth, steel cabinets that include a working surface for detailed assembly as well as overhead cabinets with doors for bulk storage.

"They're shallow and compact, and don't take up much room," says Mike Desmond, who works in design direction for West Coast Choppers. "It's actually too nice, but we'll take care of that."

The modular drawer cabinets were installed with adjustable compartments in the drawers. The compartments ensure that each tool and part has a dedicated home and compartment—an improvement of the old system of storing tools loosely on shelves or in unorganized drawers.

Another benefit is that technicians now know exactly where all tools and parts are located. That means they're able to spend more time on task and less time looking for misplaced tools and parts.