“We do our own maintenance”

I was planning on writing about safety and training today but there’s something that keeps coming up in my day to day meetings.  I’ll start of with a company I approached a while ago and they’ve made great strides on maintenance and are now reaping the benefits.

I called a company in January 2007 and setup a meeting so we could discuss ways to increase their forklift uptime and lower their long-term costs.  During the meeting I found that the equipment didn’t appear to be in good condition and would most likely fail the annual inspection.  

I asked the Operations Manager, “What have you been doing for planned maintenance?”.  

He responded with the common response of, “We do our own maintenance and have a licensed technician come in for the annual inspection.”

I of course, advised that they have a licensed technician perform maintenance on the forklifts at the minimum recommended interval of 200 hours or 180 days, whatever comes first.  The Operations Manager let me know that they don’t feel that their use of the forklift warrants planned maintenance and they haven’t had any major problems.  I stayed in touch with this contact, knowing that eventually, they will understand why planned maintenance is to their benefit and not just a cash grab from the forklift companies.

About 6 months later, I received a call for repairs on one of the forklifts.  It wasn’t anything major for our licensed technician and the repairs were done quickly and properly.  I thought this would give my contact more of an understanding when it comes to planned maintenance.  Unfortunately, he still didn’t feel that maintenance was necessary.

Not long after that, The Ministry of Labour paid a visit to the facility and performed a safety audit.  There were several issues including the forklifts.  When The Ministry of Labour advised that planned maintenance is essential to the safety of the facility and employees, he listened.  

Since that day, my customer has thanked me for the great work our technicians have done.  This company has since become a model for safety that advises other facilities.  Planned maintenance is now performed every 90 days and our skilled technicians have been able to repair the forklifts before breakdowns.

I don’t have the same clout as The Ministry of Labour but I do try to help my customers by giving them all of the necessary information to make an educated decision when it comes to maintenance.  

This is a story that I always tell companies when I hear, “We do our own maintenance”.

~ by dsterritt on July 10, 2008.