Landscape Management, April 2018

After some research he landed on a system called Tenna which provides both asset management and GPS capabilities All trucks and machines now have a QR code that can be scanned with a mobile device It leverages the smartphones that all of our guys already are using Canorro says Everybodys always using them so its just another app on their phone Heres how it works When a foreman has a problem with a mower for example he scans the equipments QR code with the app on his phone and enters notes about his concerns The fleet team can immediately access this information and assess the problem quickly and mechanics can even order parts upfront if needed It empowers the foremen to communicate thoroughly and in a timely manner he says It really just provides efficiency Though he declined to provide specific costs Canorro says hes paying less for the systems asset tracking and GPS functions than he previously paid for GPS alone from a different vendor The system also provides a sanity check for the mechanics whose observations about equipment and repair history are now memorialized in the software It helps with triage a lot too Canorro says When things get hot and heavy in the summer there is going to be more equipment broken than the mechanics can fix at once They can scroll through the system and see everything in items down for maintenance and they dont have to do a lot of the initial diagnoses themselves They can get going on the equipment that needs immediate assistance 28 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET April 2018 EffiCiENCy hACkEr No 3 Eichenlaub Inc Pittsburgh Pa Eyeing metrics At Eichenlaub Inc a member of the LandOpt network the management team keeps its eye on many key performance indicators KPIs but one in particular serves as a barometer for efficiency target revenue per man hour Its a lagging indicator and it starts when we build a financial plan says Dan Eichenlaub president His company which has 75 employees tracks this metric by department rather than as a whole company due to each business areas unique inputs He calls revenue per man hour a useful quick and dirty gauge of productivity The company evaluates this metric at the end of every month within a day of billing based on revenue billed and man hours logged The latter comes from payroll data For a lot of companies labor is the thing that gets away from them Eichenlaub says But by the time you get the P L on the 20th of the following month youve lost a lot of time For companies that are just beginning to track this information he recommends going back through historical financial information to benchmark where its been in the past Its important to recognize this KPI doesnt tell you if youre making money Eichenlaub says You could be losing money and have a good revenue per man hour This metric only indicates if you have a productivity issue around your profitability Most importantly once you see productivity is slipping you need to uncover why If that number swings 3 4 percent either way you better go find out what the cause is he says Dan Eichenlaub WEB EXTrA To learn about how Ameriscapes custom fleet recovery vehicle improves efficiency visit the Web Extras section at LandscapeManagement net Ameriscapes equipment features scannable QR codes that link to its repair history and other data Photos amErIscaPE landoPt