A FedEx facility in Michigan was having a hard time keeping up with the maintenance on their old roll-up steel doors. From constant spring maintenance to doors getting damaged from collisions, these costs were adding up. While commercial door repair costs were huge, so was the cost to productivity when a bay went down, directly affecting operations. Instead of the usual quick fix and band-aid repairs, Facility Manager, James Davis, looked for a better solution.

“We were putting 50k a year into standard roll up doors alone.”

After coming across PerforMax Global and learning about high-performance rubber doors for the logistics & distribution industry, he realized the benefits could vastly improve his facility. The results of switching from steel roll-up doors to rubber roll-up doors have immediate and long-term benefits for everyone in the facility.

Heinz Hall sees enormous foot traffic around their building. Making the look of their theatre incredibly important.

The Big Issue to Fix

It doesn’t take a lot of impact on a commercial garage door to make it non-operational. It’s incredibly easy to throw the slats out of alignment or even bend the guides. With greater impact, there’s not only more damage to the door but also to the vehicle.

“That’s our biggest problem and that’s what kills most of our doors is drivers running through them.”

Installing an impactable door solves the issues of damaged doors, but also cascades into multiple other issues fixed. Low maintenance, no downtime, and increased safety all come from installing a high-performance door. After touring our mobile showroom of high-performance doors, James had pushed to get these doors in his facility as quickly as he could.

Benefit #1: Maintenance Costs

PerforMax Global’s commercial rubber doors saved FedEx $50,000 a year. That number doesn’t come from just fixing a rolling steel door when it would go down, it also comes from the ongoing maintenance needed on them. Springs on their old steel doors needed continual maintenance after 100,000 cycles. That number sounds pretty high, but for a fleet of 125 FedEx vehicles coming in and out at least twice a day with additional outside vehicles, springs reach that number quickly.

100,000 cycle springs don’t last as long as you think. We probably open those doors about 400-500 times a day.

PerforMax rubber roll-up doors have no springs that need maintenance. The standard cycle rating for our doors is one million before any maintenance is required on our drive. On top of saving from no spring maintenance, the entire door has only 5 moving parts with very minimal and simple maintenance.

Performax Rubber Door Maintenance Requirements

• Grease the bearings: Depending on how often the door is cycled, 6 months to 1 year is the standard. For this FedEx facility, we would say every 6 months.
• Tighten Windlocks: Impact can loosen windlocks slightly. We recommend every few months to tighten them.
• Battery replacement: Most of our doors come with a safety edge transmitter that needs a battery replacement after a few years.

Benefit #2: Return on Interest

Rubber doors come with a higher upfront price tag than rolling steel doors due to the engineering work and design that add on a lot of benefits. James saw the benefit he was looking for the most; an impactable door that won’t break after a collision. Rubber roll up doors eliminate the need for emergency repairs, or worst-case scenario, entire door replacement when hit. James understood that it didn’t make sense to continually replace a broken door with the same type every time. In this case, it was $50,000 a year to keep fixing and replacing doors with the same unreliable product. With the extra cost for high-performance doors, James knows these doors will pay for themselves.

Benefit #3: No Downtime

“We put your doors on the main drive through doors and they’ve run through the doors already. The new rubber doors just reset themselves in the track and you just go about your business,” James told us.

With an astounding number of vehicles going in and out of this FedEx facility daily the chance for a collision is high. The downtime would greatly cost FedEx time in productivity; another cost to factor in on top of their $50,000 a year in maintenance. While this facility does have multiple doors to use, any facility with 1-2 doors can be greatly impacted by a non-functional door. This applies to both operations being decreased and needing emergency repairs to get back to running, which is expensive for just a quick fix. Rubber roll-up doors hardly have downtime after a collision because they reset themselves.

Benefit #4: Install and Forget

PerforMax Global rubber roll-up doors are made to improve workflow. The breakaway system that allows the door to break from the guides without damage takes seconds to reset. With just the push of a button, your high-performance door is back to being fully operational. A collision with an overhead door is no longer an emergency. Facility Manager, James, and the workers of FedEx can continue about their day like nothing happened.

“We put them up 2 years ago and haven’t had any issues since.”

Benefit #5: Safety

Rolling steel doors run the risk of free-falling. A falling steel door can come from poor spring maintenance or after the door is struck with high impact. When a door with springs is overdue on maintenance this risk with impact is even higher. Not only damage to the door and your equipment, but for the driver that runs into the door as well. With a PerforMax MaxSpeed or MaxPro, safety is included in all aspects. To add onto the breakaway system, these doors come with built-in inertia brakes and soft bottom edges for added safety. The inertia brake prevents the door from ever free-falling, even when the power is cut. The safety edge reduces damage done to equipment that hits the doors.

Benefit #6: Short and Long-Term Solutions

It’s easy to compare high-performance rubber doors to solar panels. Unlike solar panels, however, installing a rubber door had immediate benefits for James. “Short term too. If we drive through a door and it can’t be opened or raised it impacts our operations.” With a Limited Lifetime Warranty on the rubber curtains, these doors are made to last and relieve emergency operations in high-damage operations.

FedEx Direct Buy Program:
After working so often with FedEx in more than one area, PerforMax has created a program specifically for them. These are some of the benefits FedEx has obtained.

• Tailored pricing
• Providing a qualified dealer in each area for every opportunity.
• Provide project management onsite or remotely as required. PerforMax will handle the coordination to take the burden off the CA.
• Custom standard client specifications.
• Our National Account Team will conduct multi-site detailed surveys within the continental USA upon request.
• Extended warranty customized to each and every need of the doors.

Final Thoughts

James tells us that these truly are great doors to have installed at their facility. Not just at Michigan, but even the headquarters of FedEx. “We have doors down in Memphis and they love them too. I’d love to put them everywhere, but emergency and priority projects have to come first.”

“The fewer phone calls the better and there’s no phone call about those doors.”