In over 30 years of working in the parts department at Kern Machinery, Chris Schott has seen a lot of changes. When he first started, a 24-hour turnaround on getting a part was amazing. “That’s not good enough any more. There are thousands and thousands of dollars on the line, so 24 hours is too long,” he says. “That creates the need for more inventory because customers want solutions and they want to be rolling now. If they have a piece of equipment down, they may have 3 pieces that operate behind it that can’t operate because the other one’s down. Well that adds up to big money fast. Downtime is a big thing for our customers and they’re under a lot more pressure.”

Richard Knott is a parts department lifer. The parts manager started his career off working for another John Deere dealership north of Kern Machinery’s stores. After a 3.5-year stint in the parts department at that dealership, Knott came to Kern Machinery and 31 years later is still keeping the parts department on goal at the Buttonwillow location.