Business Booming for Calif. Building Supply Company

SAN DIEGO — Dixieline Lumber Co. was founded in 1913 — a time when everything you needed to build a house could be delivered by horse-drawn wagon. More than 90 years later, the southern California company delivers its lumber by truck, boat and rail, but its business philosophy has not changed: customer service is the key to success.

                      Dixieline is both a retail operation with 11 stores in southern California and a supplier to homebuilders from two California distribution centers and a shipping port in Oregon. Every three weeks, Dixieline barges 6.5 million board feet of lumber from Columbia City, Oregon, where it buys Douglas fir from local sawmills. Transporting via barge is the most economical way for Dixieline to move so much lumber; it would take 361 trucks to transport that much lumber by truck.

                      Dixieline’s story is more complex than a first glimpse reveals. This is not your typical neighborhood home improvement warehouse. Dixieline is a company that is always figuring out new ways to make life easier for its customers — the professional, large-scale lumber buyer — while it uses all the latest technology and equipment to reach customer-service goals. Any business in the wood products industry can learn something from Dixieline’s success story.

                      Take the company’s recent investment in a second cross-cut unit saw from Pacific Trail. With its first cross-cut saw – a Pacific Trail Accu-Cut 132-24CA — purchased in 2002, Dixieline showed local home builders how it could save them both time and money. With the new unit saw, Dixieline could perform custom trimming before lumber is delivered to a building site – eliminating the need for construction workers to trim the lumber one piece at a time. This generates potentially big savings in time and labor, especially for large housing developments, explained Victor Fresca, manager of Dixieline’s regional distribution center in San Diego.

                      The idea of letting Dixieline do some of this custom trimming and cutting before the lumber reaches the construction site quickly caught on among the company’s builder customers – so much that it prompted the decision to invest in a second Pacific Trail cross-cut unit saw. The second saw, also an Accu-cut 132-24CA, was scheduled to be installed at Dixieline’s new distribution center in San Bernadino in May.

                      The decision to buy the Pacific Trail equipment was a fairly easy one after his staff did some research on package saws, said Victor. “It was a quality product matched with what we believed to be quality service,” he said. “They seemed to have some of the same philosophies that we did. We felt that even from the point of installation, they would be there to support us and follow up afterward with the training of employees.”

                      The Pacific Trail saw replaced an older, similar saw that was less efficient. With the Pacific Trail machine, one worker in 13 minutes could do what two workers required 45 minutes with the old machine.

                      The Pacific Trail Accu-Cut can cut to within +/- 1/32-inch. The 132-24CA model is powered by a 20 hp motor that can be configured with a choice of voltage direct driving in carbide, chromax or carbon saw chain. The saw offers a combination of computer precision with quality workmanship and can be purchased with optional fully automatic controls.

                      Pacific Trail advertises its products as offering “a difference that will keep you cutting.” The company says its combination of sound design, quality fabrication, service and operator education will keep the saw cutting consistently.

                      “It is our mission to keep our customers in production,” Pacific Trail says in its promotional materials. “Keeping down time to a minimum is the name of the game in wood processing.”

                      Pacific Trail’s staff more than met Dixieline’s expectations, according to Victor, being there to support the machine every step of the way. The first saw runs every day for two shifts or 16 hours. Down time has been almost non-existent. Routine maintenance and minor repairs have always been completed in about a day.

                      The Pacific Trail unit saw has enabled Dixieline to provide more custom services. For example, the company can ship a house ‘package’ of building components to a job site with every piece already cut and labeled. With that kind of service, contractors do not have to handle bundles of lumber, pulling individual pieces and measuring and cutting them to make components.

                      “We essentially do anything that they would do on the job that they would like us to do” Victor said. Dixieline’s service does not stop there. The company also spends resources to figure out new ways to help customers save time and money. The customer service orientation prevails not only among the sales team but also other workers. Dixieline employees seem almost aggressive in trying to outdo each other to help customers.

                      The Dixieline staff also has become a repository of good ideas, sharing them among contractors. “Some of our best suggestions come from our customers,” said Victor.

                      The customer-service philosophy has kept Dixieline thriving even when competition from big box retailers increased. “Even when the big boxes were coming into town, we never got away from what our traditional values were,” Victor said. “We’ll do it right the first time…There’s value in that to our customers.”

                      In addition to careful recruitment and training of employees, Dixieline has made a considerable investment in lumber remanufacturing equipment. It is equipped to make everything from moulding to custom-cut rafter tails and wood siding. “A big warehouse store can’t do anything like this,” Victor noted.

                      Supplying specially sized studs is a good example of the way the Pacific Trail cross-cut unit saw is used. The sizes required by some customers are offered by most lumberyards, such as 103-1/4 inches or 115-1/4 inches, for example. “Most contractors would have to cut on the site,” said Victor. “We can cut everything in 13 minutes instead of an hour.”

                      Dixieline also manufactures custom roof trusses; they are designed and built to customer specifications with the aid of computer software. The company’s ability to supply custom trusses cuts down on the number of suppliers contractors need. Dixieline also supplies cabinets, doors and hardware.

                      Dixieline’s engineered wood products division offers Trus-Joist, Timberstrand and Paralam building components made from composite wood products. This division specializes in floor joists, ceiling joists, headers and beams for new home construction and remodeling. Dixieline is able to save contractors money on engineered wood products because it buys materials in large volume.

                      Engineered components, pre-cut lumber and other custom services provided by Dixieline enable builders to reduce on-site labor costs.

                      Another way Dixieline helps its customers is through its Builders Fund Control subsidiary, which handles construction escrow accounts. The company’s financial staff uses a sophisticated computer system to track all money coming into and out of a project’s escrow account and keeps business and tax records for customers.

                      The many services Dixieline offers make the company more valuable to its customers, and the company has prospered.

                      Dixieline has a little over 1,000 employees, including those who work on the retail floor. Many employees have been trained and promoted within Dixieline. Victor is a good example of the way the company likes to “raise its own,” he said. He began working for Dixieline 13 years ago, starting part-time while attending San Diego State University. He has been promoted a number of times and now is manager of the distribution center in National City.

                      The National City facility covers more than 1.2 million square feet of land, including parking area for the company’s large fleet of delivery trucks. The company’s 40,000 square foot plant can do everything from resawing to custom moulding and surfacing. Last year the facility shipped 254 million board feet of lumber products.

                      Dixieline was a family-owned business for nearly 90 years until it was purchased by the Lanoga Corp. in 2002. It was founded by W.S. Cowling Sr. and remained under the Cowling family’s ownership until 2002, and the Cowling family is still involved in the company’s operations.

                      The Lanoga Corp. operates a number of other lumberyards in the West, including locations in Colorado, Alaska, Washington and Arizona. Lanoga had upwards of $2 billion in sales in 2003 before acquiring Dixieline.

                      The acquisition will enable Dixieline to continue to offer value-added services and positions it for continued market growth as a division of a larger corporation. Dixieline’s various operations generated revenues of $265 million in 2003 with about 80% of its sales to contractors and the remaining 20% to homeowners.

                      Victor said he feels a lot of pride in the way Dixieline treats customers. Friends and family members call him frequently to tell him what a great experience they had planning a project with help from Dixieline staff.

                      “A person coming in to do a project for the first time, they’re going to have a great experience at Dixieline,” he said. “It’s something I’m very proud of.”

                      (Editor’s Note: For more information on Pacific Trail or its cross-cut unit saws, call the company at  (888) 910-7297 or visit the Web site at www.ptmi.net.)