Landscape Management, October 2013
Planning 50 ILLUSTRATION ISTOCK INTERNATIONAL INC BUSINESS PLANNER 2014 BY DAVE HESSONG Q P Î È Run È K WHATS THE ROI FOR EFFICIENCY TRAINING WEB EXTRA Visit the Web Extras section of Landscape Management net to download an efficiency health assessment workbook which allows you to enter a billing rate number of workers estimated amount of time wasted and how often you think it occurs continued on page 75 A The return on investment for efficiency Youll want to show your crew leaders best practices for some specific tasks but youll never cover every situation in your operations training obviously depends on the efficiency of your operation As a rule theres always room for improvement So many times we tend to do things a certain way but if we were asked why we do something this way the answer would be something like Because weve always done it that way The definition of efficiency is acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste expense or unnecessary effort or exhibiting a high ratio of output to input It means doing the same work faster The key is doing the same work and having the same results If you sacrifice quality to gain speed its not being more efficient its only being faster Theres certainly room for improvement in how we do a job but what about how we prepare for and travel to and from a job There could be the most room for improvement here How much time do your workers spend loading up at the shop in the morning Do you pay workers to sit in a truck for 10 minutes while the driver stops for fuel or longer if the crew stops for materials on the way to a job Consider these operational aspects Heres a hypothetical situation A supervisor fails to consider the best place to position the trailer when arriving at a job so his guys can unload materials most efficiently Anytime you do a repetitive task even for a few seconds it adds up to a significant amount of time Dont believe me Lets do the math Take three workers moving 300 pavers to the back of a house inaccessible by mechanical means for a patio job If each carries five at a time its 20 trips each Multiply that times the three workers and you have 60 trips If the trailer is parked on the street instead of backed in the LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET OCTOBER 2013
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