Camper companies expand to meet demand

LOVELAND and BOULDER — Two camper companies expanded their operations to meet a growing demand for the weekend warrior, traveling and outdoor lifestyles.

Colorado Camper Van LLC, founded in Loveland in 2009, added 8,000 square feet to its 12,000-square-foot manufacturing facilities, and Colorado Teardrop Trailers LLC, which operates as Colorado Teardrops and was founded in 2014, is more than doubling its space to 8,600 square feet through a move to a larger headquarters in Boulder.

The additional space allows both companies not only to increase their production capabilities but to add to their product offerings.

“We have a really cool product we will come out with that has to do with pop tops, a whole line of product we’ll come out with in January,” said Derek Weber, company founder and owner of Colorado Camper Van, 1531 E. 11th St., who, at this point, is not able to release details about the product. “We did this expansion expecting to launch this new product.”

Colorado Camper Van made the expansion two months ago into the space adjacent to the company’s current facility to bring more capabilities in house, instead of contracting them out. The company provides custom and 10 different standard van build-outs with an internally accessible sleeping area above the van.

The expansion adds another three production bays and space to bring in Kustom Alley, a third-party auto upholsterer, and a computer numerical control router for scalable and computerized cabinet manufacturing.

“We were able to take these different branches and put them in one location,” Weber said. “That gives us control over timelines, so we can make our deadlines and (provide) quality. We can make changes for fit and finish right on the spot and have immediate results.”

With the expansion, the company can manufacture five build-outs a week, an idea that came out of improving the quality of pop-tops. The build-outs previously took six to seven weeks from arrival to finish, and with most operations in house, the timeline can be sped up to four weeks, Weber said.

“We build everything from scratch at the shop,” Weber said.

The company also is remodeling its existing space to provide a larger inventory area and welding shop with more capabilities, plus by the end of the year to provide powder coating of the hardware, such as roof racks and ladders, something that now is contracted out to a Berthoud company, Weber said. The inventory space will increase from 150 to 2,000 square feet, and the welding shop from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet.

“Now, we’re able to have more inventory in stock for faster lead times to get the vans out the door faster,” Weber said. “Once we get that room done, we should be able to have inventory for the next 20 vans being built as opposed to the next two vans.”

The expansions require the hiring of additional staff. The company brought in seven employees in addition to the 15 already there, including one new welder and staff in maintenance, the top side and the interior department.

Colorado Teardrops, which makes teardrop-style camping trailers, doubled its production space by moving earlier this month to 1750 55th St. in Boulder from its Central Avenue location. The company offers seven different styles of teardrop trailers for retro, off-road and commercial uses. 

“We’re embracing more of a modern manufacturing environment,” said Dean Wiltshire, founder and chairman of Colorado Teardrops.

Colorado Teardrops is engaged in lead manufacturing, moving away from craftsmen working in two steps on a single trailer to the assembly of panels at four workstations, Wiltshire said.

Previously, the trailers sat at the first workstation for a week before heading to the second station, Wiltshire said. Now, the trailers spend 12 hours at each station or a total of 48 hours in assembly, he said, adding that as the company embraces its new CNC router, the timeframe will shorten to 40 hours. The router is used to cut aluminum, plywood, insulation and other materials for various parts of the trailer, but a couple of parts are still fabricated out of house, such as the trailer frame that needs cranes to move it and the passenger doors.

“It provides greater satisfaction to our customers in the sense they will receive their trailers sooner. We’ll never have a two-year wait time,” Wiltshire said. “Our objective is to go from order to delivery in two months, up to six months. Some of our competitors take two years … and haven’t modernized their manufacturing facilities. We see it as competitive advantage to deliver quicker to the customer.”

As the company grows, it hasn’t been able to keep up with demand, but now has room to grow, Wiltshire said. Initially, the company produced 35 trailers a year and this year will finish at 50 with next year anticipated at 120, he said. The expanded space is sized to store enough materials to make up to 200 trailers annually, he said.

The space also accommodates a state-of-the-art manufacturing space with room for sales, operations, research and development, and a 600 square-foot showroom to show three trailers.

“As we become recognized as a quality teardrop manufacturer across the U.S., really the demand is dictating that we move so we can try to keep up with it,” Wiltshire said. “We’re scaling up to anticipate continued growth.”

In July, Colorado Teardrops hired consultant Manufacturer’s Edge, funded by the National Institute of Science and Technology, to help the company modernize and improve efficiencies in the manufacturing space. The company plans to hire another three to four employees to add to the 16 employee base for the assembly process.

“We’re getting pretty sophisticated,” Wiltshire said. “Everything the employee needs is at their fingertips. The parts are readily available.”

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