[Lanelle]

What do you do or expect your equipment operators to do at the end of each day regarding the cleaning and maintenance of your rubber-tracked machines?

[Bill Schwab]

They are to clean the tracks, keep rollers free of hardened dirt. Check track tnesion and if they are loose, put them back to the 1/4" tolerance they need to be at. Top off the fuel tank, and grease the 8 hour pivots. The next morning before the machine starts, they check engine oil and fluids. That's it. Obviously if there is a problem with the machine it is downed, but that is far from likely..

[Lanelle]

Thank you Bill. That seems like a reasonable expectation and fits what I recall being required of Operating Engineers on larger equipment.
The reason for my question stems from watching one of our managers spend at least 15 minutes on a Monday morning at a new job site, cleaning the hard clay off of a machine so that he could change attachments and grease the machine. I kept wondering why someone hadn't cleaned up the machine on Friday.
How would you handle such a situation?

[Bill Schwab]

Lanelle:

Is the track drive relatively new to your company and have you written it's usage into your book of rules? And, have your operators been trained on it?

The two last things are critical. If you have and they have, then I think it becomes a disciplinary measure with some consequence for non compliance. If it is new and your rules are unclear, then it's time to make hard rules for operation.

If they did not want to grease it, you could comprimise. Clean it the night you put it away, then, while the engine is warming up, the grease coud be handled. Pretty easy routine to get into.