Would anyone have any photos or other examples of the best ways they've seen maintenance priorities or needs communicated to their shop mechanics so if someone is gone the guys in the shop can come by and see what is up next so to speak? I have tried simple lists on paper with a clip board but that has been a failure due to a host of reasons. So I figure that there must be some better answers than what I have tried so far floating around for how to best communicate to the guys out there making things happen. Any thoughts are well appreciated.
A dry erase board hanging on the shop wall I have used before. Works well providing you can get your people to pay attention to it.
Just make it large enough for EVERYONE to see.. How about a morning meeting when someone is out..WITH DOUGHNUTS.. VERY IMPORTANT.. “Good morning fellas, Joe is out today and was working on ***** and it needs to go today.. Do I have any volunteers to take the job.??” “No.. alrighty then, it looks like Bill it is.. Bill, you have the most experience on ***** how about jumping in on this.” “Thank you for your attention and help yourself to a doughnut on your way out.” The whole thing shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes & don’t give them time to b!tch about anything.. You’re there for 1 reason, to get someone to finish a job.. If things really go bad and it turns into a gripe fest.. just tell’m, “there will be more meetings like this in the future, where we can all list our problems, but for right now I just need to get this job outta here.. so everyone get back to work.. and don’t forget to grab a doughnut..” (lol) Good luck
There is actually more boards than this--that I used for the company I worked for. As many as 65 tractors & 115 trailers. The rest I kept in my head, but it was right out front no setting at a keyboard wasting time.
This is something along the lines of what I was thinking about. Did you use pin stripe to make permanent squares?
This led to fat cops. It could be a pattern.................
A place I used to work, the owner wrote his own computer program. It has every piece of equipment, with the maintenance schedule, tied to the hours logged in every time we would fuel. It also had entry system for all extra problems/ repairs. In one way, it was pretty neat, because you could pull up past history, see what machines had overdue maintenance, and he could easily track what machines were profitable, and which ones were nothing but trouble. All fuel got logged, and every employee has to enter all time in 15 minute increments, tagged to individual machines or projects. And you couldn't just put two hours on "miscellaneous". But oh the man hours spent, by guys entering information. One guy spent at least 2-3 hours every day. Everyone probably averaged a half hour every day, logging in work and job time. Which adds up if you have 8-10 guys.
We use Trello , simple, free, not perfect but works
The board is as easy as it gets, Work orders got written and filed. When truck was deleted from fleet every item that was ever done to it was in a folder laying on the passenger seat for prospective buyer. All dealer invoices for warranty included. No screwing around looking at a monitor typing away--The board was in the shop so when a truck rolled in we could see right away the trailer was due also, no stopping to set looking through a screen. All mileage/ hours were logged on board as truck left, the board never failed-------------------even when there was a power outage or the internet was down. Sometimes you just can't better something----this is one of them.
correct.
When the place i work sold out I was hoping things would change along these lines and the drivers would have to go through a manager . Its not fun sometimes trying to figure out what to do first and how much to spend were to get parts what to do about hard to get parts ?
You said a mouth full there Doug. If drivers are allowed to purchase---there is no control. What is a priority and what isn't--not to mention there's no paper work on what was done. Drivers are hired to drive--mechanics are hired to repair, two total separate areas that need to be kept separate otherwise expenses and quality of work goes haywire. I had my go-to's for parts and allot of it was based on availability & pricing. * Tracking repairs & expenses of each piece lets you know which piece is a problem child & needs to find a new home. Plus if it's a truck there are thin files and thick files and that lets you know you have a driver that needs to find a new home.
We use samsara at work for driver dvirs it’s sent to all terminals so it can be seen if the truck or trailer is at that terminal drivers can also look at past dvirs to see if there is an issue before leaving
Company had samsara and bluetree-----trouble is bad things happen around the clock. The only real way to keep issues under control is on time services with dvirs, but like everything in todays world,, It's all about that money---nope that trucks got to go-we'll get next time around, there never is a next time.
The more equipment you have, the more sophisticated a system you need. We had thousands of pieces across several hundred locations. We needed a computerized system for tracking and planning. Went through several different programs and they all had issues. The biggest benefit was the ability of management to identify the problem children and having the data to justify the replacement of said child.
Actually the best thing to do is down size---less stress.
Don’t miss dealing with 7 planners plus the system operations guys, and 12 foremen, ……retirement has been a huge stress relief.
The company that bought the place were i work out is taking on more and more . The place i am at is over loaded already . At least the should have waited and look and studied what was already going on. It looks like a train wreck in slow motion .