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Made in the USA

MANUFACTURED IN THE USA

Make Your Work Vehicle Work for You: Installations for Every Industry

September 29, 2019

Make Your Work Vehicle Work for You: Installations for Every Industry

Regardless of the industry, if you depend on a work vehicle to haul and store tools and equipment, you need a system that works for you. Not only do you need to keep tools and equipment undamaged during transport, but you also need to find what you’re looking for quickly when on the job. Expensive equipment and toolboxes also need to be protected from theft; and heavy equipment needs to be stored so that it’s easy to load and unload without wasting time or causing injury.

For over 30 years, Extendobed has made it our business to construct custom-made truck and work van bed extensions for every industry, from law enforcement to pest control. With a 1,000- to 3,000-pound load limit, these units are custom built with everything from multi-storage containers and chemical storage to ladder racks and full-extension pull-out trays. These extended bed units are built with heavy-duty materials to safely and securely transport a large number of tools and heavy equipment, while keeping everything organized and easy to load and unload.

Contractor Helpers

Extendobed’s Contractor Caddy is a contractor’s dream. With a tool rack, removable lumber rack, and full extension pull-out tray and drawer, this customizable slideout bed can be made to fit the needs of any type of contractor. Safely and securely haul tools and larger equipment, while keeping them organized and free of damage during transport. Even heavy equipment like generators, compressors, or welders can be mounted on the sliding deck for easy access. Additionally, the Contractor Caddy is easy to access and unload at the site. For example:

  • Concrete finishers can safely and securely stow larger tools, such as portable mixers and wheelbarrows, making them easier to load and unload without injury. Smaller tools, including shovels, buckets, and floats, can also be organized along with these larger tools for safe transport without damage or spilling.
  • Framers can safely store their toolboxes to avoid theft, while storing lumber in a separate, pull-out tray that prevents it from falling or shifting during transport and makes it easy to unload.
  • Drywallers can transport sheets of drywall securely in the full-extension pull-out tray, making them easy to remove without damage to the drywall, your back, knees, or shins while unloading.
  • Tile setters can transport hundreds of feet of tile while still having room for heavy bags of mortar and tools — all of which can be organized and secured in separate compartments for damage-free delivery to the site.
  • Painters can keep extension ladders and poles secure and organized in a separate compartment from messy brushes and other paint tools. They also have quick access to air compressors with sliding storage trays.
  • Roofers can secure ladders and their nail guns and compressors in the caddy instead of on the roof or in the bed of the vehicle, deterring theft and making them easily accessible while working.
Surveyor Solutions 

In surveying work, sophisticated and expensive equipment such as GPS and terrestrial scanners are used frequently. Not to mention the fact that surveyors spend a lot of time on the road in rugged environments of all sorts — from frozen landscapes to wet jungles. Add to this the need for surveyors to make efficient use of daylight hours; making time-management a crucial part of their job. All of this can make the transport of surveying equipment a challenge.

Extendobed’s Kennewick Surveyor and Carbon County Surveyor were built specifically for storing and transporting surveyor tools so that they are protected from damage. With separate storage compartments for tools (including a separate tripod storage area in the Kennewick), and a full-extension drawer and fold-down gates, tools are well-organized and easy to find — and grab fast — when on-site. Expensive surveying tools are also protected from weather and theft with multi-level compartments and heavy-duty caging.

Pest Control Problem-Solvers

Many are the tools of trade when it comes to pest control. In a day’s time, you can encounter everything from termites to scorpions — in other words, you need to be prepared for anything, which means stowing insecticides, traps, sprayers, bug steamers, foggers, hose reels and all other tools on your truck. With hauling such an array of tools comes the need for proper storage to prevent chemicals from spilling and larger equipment from injuring your back when unloading. The easy access to and storage of equipment gets you from one job site to the next quickly so you can do more jobs in a day.

Extendobed’s Pesticide Unit includes a chemical fill tank and locking chemical storage drawer, pressure regulation, hose reels, and a ladder rack. Everything you need in a day’s work is available to you in an extended storage bed custom made for pest control professionals. Also available in aluminum, the Pesticide Unit keeps chemicals stored safely and hoses neatly rolled to prevent kinks and ensure they are ready to go when needed.

Extendobed Has the Answers

Whatever the industry, Extendobed can design a custom mobile storage solution built for it. Not only do Extendobed’s products keep work tools and equipment safe and organized, they also help professionals save time and stay efficient during their workday.

To learn how a custom Extendobed solution can meet your specific needs, email us at: websales@extendobed.com.

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The Power of an Organized Workspace

April 02, 2019

The Power of an Organized Workspace

It’s frustrating to have trouble finding a specific tool when you need it. But in some industries, there’s more at stake than just frustration. If you work in a specialized trade such as law enforcement, fire mitigation, or construction/repair, easily finding your tools could be the difference between life and death.

Maintaining your workspace in an organized and efficient manner has numerous benefits. These include the ability to control costs, increase output, and manage your equipment maintenance and replacement more effectively.

Different Applications, Similar Needs

Extendobed offers a variety of specialized options and accessories for specific applications. These options can be purchased separately or customized to meet customers’ needs and budgets. In either case, these setups help your employees do their jobs more efficiently.

In law enforcement, special equipment can include weapons and ammunition, explosives, materials to gather evidence, and highly trained K-9 dogs. Weapons, ammunition, and explosives can be safely stored in weapons drawers, custom compartments, and day boxes for easy access when needed. Evidence presents its own challenges: it must be collected carefully and stored securely in locking compartments, as chain of custody is crucial. Other specialized equipment must also be safely stored during transport. For example, K-9 dogs should be safely transported in secure kennels during incidents of high-speed travel and over different types of terrain.

In fire mitigation, where minutes are a matter of life and death, specialized equipment must be secure and quickly accessible. Special equipment and storage include:

  • magnetic and/or dry erase accountability boards in stand-alone and drawer pop-up configurations;
  • slide-out walls for fast, easy access to self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) mounts and hand tools;
  • custom structures for easy access to extrication and rescue equipment;
  • file drawers for information organization;
  • and multiple levels of storage for transport of larger equipment including awnings, coolers, stokes baskets, and backboards.

In construction, tools must be secured for both safety and to deter attempted theft. Generators, compressors, and other large portable equipment can be stored on slide-out trays so they are easy to access and remove from the vehicle. Hand tools, fasteners, and other small materials can be organized in locking drawers or tool boxes.

Having quick, reliable access to the correct tools isn’t always a matter of life or death in every industry. However, it’s still essential to effective job performance.

Equipment vs. Space

Any vehicle has a limited amount of space available. For some lines of work, this presents an interesting challenge: balancing the right tools and supplies with enough space to transport them. When you can bring only a certain amount of equipment with you, having a well-organized mobile space becomes even more important.

For example, an HVAC technician must be able to service countless combinations of systems — but a few tools are always useful: a cordless drill (and extra batteries), tape measure, hammer, and step ladder. Secure storage for transport ensures items aren’t damaged en route to a job. And organized storage is key for speed and efficiency once on the job site.

In law enforcement, the work isn’t over when the “bad guy” is in handcuffs. Evidence collection, cleanup, and record-keeping all require specialized supplies with specific storage needs.

What Efficiency Looks Like in Practice

Just as different industries have different needs, so do individual customers. Here are a couple of examples of how Extendobed created custom solutions for specific situations.

An electrician who was working for a municipality was injured lifting a piece of equipment out of his work van. His back injury required time off work to heal, as well as physical therapy, before he could return to his duties. As he healed, the question arose of whether he would be able to use the equipment the municipality owned when he returned to work. The municipality contacted Extendobed for a potential solution. Extendobed created a custom slide-out unit to house all of this electrician’s tools and equipment. Each of his tools are now accessible without risking reinjury. Without Extendobed’s solution, the employee could not have returned to work for the municipality.

A commercial door installer used to load and unload doors from his truck manually. Each set of doors took an hour to load and another hour to unload. So no matter how long an actual installation took, he spent two hours per job loading and unloading. His Extendobed allows him to load a full set of doors using a forklift, which saves two to four hours per day, depending on the number of jobs. This time savings has reduced his labor costs, allowing him to lower his bids. This in turn has resulted in more jobs, thereby increasing his revenue. He can also complete more jobs in a day, further adding to his bottom line.

Good Design is Key

A well-designed workspace is crucial to organization and efficiency, especially in specialized industries. Customized solutions exponentially extend the value of an organized and efficient workspace.

To learn how your mobile working environment will benefit from customized organizational solutions, email us at: websales@extendobed.com

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Using the Right Tools Increases Efficiency and Improves Safety

February 19, 2019

Using the Right Tools Increases Efficiency and Improves Safety

100% extension easy organization

Whether you work in law enforcement, fire safety, emergency services, or another professional services field, certain basic tasks are common before you depart for the day: You must ensure that you have all the tools and materials you will need to perform your job, organized in a safe and efficient manner. However, packing up all these tools and materials in the morning and after each job/call takes additional time and can be an organizational challenge. Having everything you need readily available makes a big difference in successfully performing your job — but you also need a safe and efficient method for transporting and quickly accessing your tools, parts, supplies, and equipment.

Safety Concerns

Safety is essential for workers across all industries, including safe access to equipment and supplies. You don’t want to put your workers in a situation where arriving at every job site causes unnecessary risk. Workers should be able to easily and safely access the tools to do their job, which immediately makes them more productive.

Heavy or awkward equipment can be difficult to get into or out of vehicles, increasing the risk of injury. In addition, equipment or supplies may shift in transit, making it even more difficult to access. Not having easy access as they load or unload their vehicles can easily injure workers’ backs, knees, and shoulders. Such injuries can be costly in terms of workers’ time off the job, potential lost work while they are out, and of course the increase in your workers’ comp insurance rates. Many times, the savings from avoiding even one back injury more than pays for equipment that improves worker safety.

Dangerous equipment and materials, such as firearms and chemicals, need even more careful handling during loading, transport, and unloading. These tools require specialized storage compartments where they can be safely secured, to protect not only the vehicle operator but also bystanders.

Efficiency

In addition to being safer, having well-organized workspaces on fire, police, and service vehicles also increases efficiency. Workers with well-organized service vehicles don’t have to spend time looking for their tools or supplies because they know right where everything is. Equipment that’s organized and easy to access allows service professionals to complete jobs quickly and finish more jobs in a day. It also reduces time spent on the job site or loading supplies, which lowers overall labor costs to make your proposals even more competitive.

Imagine the difference between packing your tools, equipment, and supplies every morning; climbing into the bed of your truck multiple times at each job site; digging through everything to find the right part or piece of equipment; and then repacking your toolbox and having to re-stow all of your parts, supplies, and equipment back into your truck bed after each job — versus being able to flip a latch; pull out a sliding bed; and select the part or tool needed or access heavy equipment such as tanks, air compressors, or generators without ever having to pick them up. Then after you complete your job you return everything to its place, ready to go for the next job without ever having to climb into the bed of your truck again. Multiply this time savings across every vehicle and every job, and you’ll see a significant increase in productivity and profitability.

Extendobed Solutions

Service vehicles are standardized to be useful to many industries — which is great until you have specialized needs for a specific industry. Extendobed creates custom solutions for any industry. Our products maximize your service vehicle’s space to provide efficiency and safety.

Extendobed offers telescoping truck bed extenders and custom enclosures for a variety of use cases. We provide solutions for various law enforcement and fire safety vehicles, as well as solutions for any type of service or work truck. For example:

  • Law enforcement — Equipment storage with containment caging can keep equipment in place, even while driving over rough terrain or at high speeds — making this kind of enclosure ideal for law enforcement or search and rescue vehicles.
  • Fire safety — In a fire support vehicle, our well-organized and easily accessible cubbies can store chemicals, equipment, communication equipment, and other supplies. Command center units are available with electronics panels, fold-down work tables, and dry-erase easels.
  • Government — Municipalities can use custom Extendobed installations to support water, power, or other utility workers with solutions that accommodate their specific needs.
  • Oil & gas, utilities, power, and pest control — All these industries can benefit from our custom storage and hauling solutions, with equipment mounted on slides and in cubbies designed to meet your specifications — so that everything stays put, even in rough transit, but is easily accessible once on the job site.
  • Other specialized industries — Commercial door installers can go from manually loading and unloading doors into their service trucks or walk-in trailers to being able to forklift-on and forklift-off their doors.
  • All industries — For any industry, our bookcase enclosures are designed to keep information, procedures, and forms in sensible order, with a place for everything.

Regardless of the industry, Extendobed’s installations keep tools, equipment, and supplies right at workers’ fingertips, maximizing efficiency and ensuring safety. With a wide variety of fixed units and sliding units for easier access, Extendobed’s applications are virtually endless.

The more complex and competitive our professional environments become, the more important it is to have quick, easy, and safe access to well-organized tools, equipment, and supplies — which quickly pays for itself in increased productivity and reduced work injuries. Find out why Extendobed is the best-in-class solution to customize your mobile work space by emailing us at websales@extendobed.com.

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