Landscape contractors are buzzing with excitement. Soon their mowers will be revving up and their books will be full of spring cleanup jobs. That excitement can quickly turn sour if supervisors and crews run into operational bottlenecks. Keeping an efficient workflow can be the difference between maximum profit this spring and a sluggish start.
The first step should be taking a candid look at past performance and locating any inefficiencies. Let’s face it; supervisors and their crews can’t be everywhere at once. But, taking time to identify trends that contributed to downtime or equipment that underperformed last season and addressing those issues now can go a long way to keeping operations smooth as spring hits. Helping you answer the question — does your current lineup of equipment fit the needs of your crew this spring?
Toro aims to help with seasonal maintenance by recognizing March 1-7 as Lawn Mower Maintenance Week. Use this week an annual reminder of the importance of pre-season maintenance not only to maximize a mower’s performance but to avoid mid-season breakdowns.The Toro Company
Maintenance Matters!
Next, it’s time to focus on the equipment. But pre-season maintenance can only do so much to avoid a bottleneck. Empower crews to keep equipment maintenance top of mind each day with a couple of easy additions to their workflow:
Daily Checklist: Diagnosing a problem in the shop takes minutes; discovering it on a customer's property can cost hours. Empower crews to catch minor issues like low fluid levels, loose bolts and belts and uncharged batteries each day before they head out.
Maintenance Go-Kits: If a breakdown occurs on a job, it shouldn’t derail the day — equip every trailer with a standardized bin to fix the most common issues: extra parts, tools and top-off fluids. This eliminates guesswork so crews can quickly fix minor issues on-site or immediately alert a supervisor for a replacement if a larger issue occurs.
Equipped for Anything
An efficient plan is only as good as the tools being used. Versatility can be a powerful weapon against bottlenecks. Investing in a multi-purpose platform that can transition between tasks reduces clutter in the trailer and leads to efficiencies during the workday. Investing in equipment that can quickly switch from a high-powered leaf blower or aerator to a tine rake dethatcher, a leaf plow, or even a mulch dump allows one unit to handle an entire property's needs without ever heading back to the shop or trailer for a swap.
The Toro Company
When the crew steps off the truck, they should transition straight into work, rather than being forced to troubleshoot a logistics problem. Right-sizing the fleet is crucial to avoiding this roadblock. For example, if operators are expecting to quickly tackle the back yard with a 60-in mower, but it can’t fit through the gate, they will have to run back to the trailer for a smaller mower which will not finish the job as quickly. The added manual labor may also cause problems later in the day as the operator will have expended extra time and energy that wasn't accounted for.
To help, supervisors should audit their job sites frequently and ensure the equipment on that crew’s trailer matches the day’s route. Additionally, try to group properties with tight-access together on the schedule so a crew equipped with smaller, high-performance machines can tackle them in succession.
Simplify the Command Center
Administration friction or communication breakdowns can be just as costly as breakdowns or mismatched equipment. Toro’s research shows that 57 percent of contractors still use paper logbooks to manage their work. Manual processes can lead to misplaced invoices, scheduling conflicts, and missed jobs, reducing revenue and profit margins. Moving to a single business management software streamlines operations and gives you clearer control over your assets so you can maximize operating profit and save time.
@Dmytro - stock.adobe.com
The winner in the busy spring cleanup season is not always the crew with the fastest, newest equipment, it's the one that’s looked ahead and made a plan to ensure a smooth approach to the season.
