[mow-n-man]

Here's a kick-off from the "Continuation" thread and how it relates to equipment repair concerns.

Exactly "when" was the last time you have laid employees off due to having your equipment into a repair shop and waiting for it to be fixed?

Yes, we are all concerned about getting in and out of a repair shop but did it truly have negative impact to production.

If it did then you must have laid the operator off. There was nothing productive for him to do cause you didn't have a machine for him to run.

If you kept the operator on payroll but found something else for him to do then all that happened was you "rescheduled" work that was needed to be done. Whether he did it later or now is irrelevant. You kept him busy so the impact of down machinery was only minor in a "yearly" outlook of your business.

Input?

Thanks!

[Bill Schwab]

"Exactly "when" was the last time you have laid employees off due to having your equipment into a repair shop and waiting for it to be fixed?"

24 years ago, once. Our equipment was Komatsu.
Of late, never. It's Caterpillar equipment.

"Yes, we are all concerned about getting in and out of a repair shop but did it truly have negative impact to production."

Yes it did. We had a 5 million dollar performance bond riding on
completion and we relied on that machine to get the job done. It took 12 days to get another machine to that jobsite, so we were 12 days behind the eight ball. Six weeks passed since the Komatsu broke, the parts came, the machine was fixed and we shipped it from North Carolina back to Oswego Illinois to work a local sewer gig. You don't even want to know how many billable hours it cost us there.


"You kept him busy so the impact of down machinery was only minor in a "yearly" outlook of your business.

We were forced to pay his full day for the time the machine went down, the following days we laid him off until we found a machine that could complete the work.

In our operation, machines and employees and yearly outlook are hand in hand. We worked up to 14 employees, then after we outfitted each team with the equipment they need to cut labor, we cut labor by 50%. If machines go down, labor stands still unless we have a day of hand work, which is rare.

That is why we place as much emphysis on billable hours as we do. Cheap machinery will end up costing you more on your yearly outlook because it will break more and you will get second and third rate service techs whenever they see fit to get to you rather than when you need them.

Southern California is a hand job in the form of homes. Very little and tight access, very steep hills, lots of rock. Machine time is billed into every job we do, along with the apprpriate amount of recovery per constant wear items that are projected to be replaced at set amounts of hours.

Downed machines are not even an issue with the Caterpillar equipment we chose to get the work done so we don't worry about keeping people on payroll who can't produce because of machine failures..