Control the clock

Continuity is key when mowing crews are concerned: solid company leaders, dependable account managers, proactive foreman.

“If you are constantly changing the manager and/or the supervisor, then your ability to have an efficient start is grossly reduced,” says Mike Rorie, vice president of the Ohio Valley division of The Brickman Group in Cincinnati.

A productive mowing crew begins with prepping trucks the night before – “P.M. preparation makes A.M. efficiency a reality,” says Rorie, and includes sharing estimates with crews so everyone understands budgeted man-hours.

Precision has never been more important in this service sector, where companies that price competitively can’t afford to spend extra minutes on a property because of poor planning or clunky processes.

This month, Lawn & Landscape spoke to three firms to learn how they manage efficient mowing crews.

Polishing the playbook
Every crew at PROCARE Landscape Management has a specialty: mowing, pruning or vegetation control. “That way, my mowers are working eight to 10 hours a day rather than having them parked on a truck while (crewmembers) are pruning,” says, Dirk Bakhuyzen, president of the Byron Center, Mich., company.

Another productivity plus of this setup – each employee hones a skill and becomes highly efficient at that task.
This crew organization is just one of the many tweaks Bakhuyzen has made over the years to amp up efficiency at PROCARE. For instance, a few years ago, the great experiment was starting a one-man crew, and Bakhuyzen found that extra people and equipment – though essential ingredients of a “crew” – actually cause the schedule to lag.
“Our one-man crew can stay closer to budgeted times – there is no downtime, no one person waiting for another to (finish),” Bakhuyzen says of the approach.

Sure, a one-man crew needs a truck and equipment, two significant investments. But once on the property, that individual is focused and can work smart on smaller properties.

As for the other seven crews at PROCARE, a responsible foreman and detailed routing sheets that are shared with the team help everyone understand budgeted man-hours. “We give crews the tools and information they need and help them set goals,” Bakhuyzen says.

Meanwhile, Bakhuyzen sets specific targets for the crews: get “out of the gate” each morning by 7:20 (20 days of this and the whole company gets breakfast); finish the week’s work on Thursday night (the company moved to four ten-hour workdays); pack a brownbag lunch (it’s virtually impossible to eat out during a half-hour break); and hit the budgeted man-hours outlined on daily schedules.

Route sheets list the customer name, the account manager and budgeted times. “We have customers who have been with us for many years, so I can look at 10 year’s worth of time records and say, ‘This is how long it should take on this property,’” Bakhuyzen says.

Bakhuyzen figures in 15 to 20 percent of the total day for travel time. “There is hardly any way to get around that,” he says, adding that routes are based on crew and property size. “If you have a two-man crew with the right equipment, they can handle bigger properties.”

Each of the objectives PROCARE sets brings the company closer to maximum productivity. For instance, by instituting a four-day work week, Bakhuyzen noticed that crews are motivated by a three-day weekend to work longer and harder. 

“We get closer to our budgeted times,” Bakhuyzen says. “If crews have a fifth day, they work five 8-hour days and they don’t push themselves as hard as they do when they are working four tens.”

This year, the company stopped bagging grass and now mulches clippings at most of its properties. That means no more hauling grass back to the shop. “We rarely bring back clippings,” Bakhuyzen says. “And we had zero complaints from our customers when we made that switch.”

Another operational tune-up: PROCARE retrofitted six mowers to run on propane. A provider stocks racks of propane tanks on site, so crews can trade their empties. The cost of propane is equivalent to gasoline now, Bakhuyzen says. The real advantage is reduced emissions. Bakhuyzen produces a meter ticket from March. The gasoline emission test showed mowers putting out 2,112 parts per million (per minute) of carbon monoxide. The propane mowers put out 97 ppm/minute.

“The guys that run those mowers say the propane seems to give the engines a little bit more horsepower,” Bakhuyzen says, pointing out the operational bonus. 

Essentially, Bakhuyzen says you can play with process and make all the changes you want, but buy-in from crewmembers is essential – and so is giving them the freedom to perform.

“If they have the right equipment on their trailers to do the job efficiently, I give them the budgeted times and let them know of the expectations and let them work toward meeting those goals,” Bakhuyzen says.  

Focus on high maintenance
When a ValleyCrest location wins a new commercial client, the account manager reviews the entire book of business to figure out how those newly acquired man-hours will slide into a crew’s schedule.

“You lose efficiency if you add a new piece of work without looking at what (equipment) you actually own,” says Howard Mees, vice president of operations and equipment at ValleyCrest Landscape Companies. “Whenever you add work, you should look at your entire book of business and see how it will fit into the route based on the customer’s needs.”

So after taking a holistic look at the company’s equipment and maintenance routes, ValleyCrest may reorganize a route to accommodate the new account based on its location and equipment needs. Spending time on rescheduling saves time that might be sacrificed in the field if the new job was jostled into a crew’s schedule.

Crew efficiency boils down to using the right equipment to meet customer demands, and doing so safely while meeting high-quality standards. It’s a tall order, and filling it requires strong field leadership.

“Field is first,” says Mees, emphasizing how the company invests in its people through training.

Account managers head up the crews for designated routes and each is responsible for their own book of business. Each crew is manned with a foreman whose charge is to execute the daily schedule.

“You can drive the accountability and responsibility down to the crew leader level,” Mees says. “They are the ones in the field day in and day out, and they are making great decisions.”

If a crew pulls into a golf course site and the turf by the clubhouse is too wet to mow, the foreman will take note, radio back to the account manager and work out a plan. The foreman ultimately makes recommendations on each property that helps ValleyCrest reach its safety, quality and productivity goals.

“A crew might be scheduled to do some pruning and they find out there is an event scheduled on the area of the property they are supposed to service,” Mees says. “They have the capability to be flexible.”

Crews are equipped to manage total maintenance on each site; workload dictates the equipment palette. A standard setup is a 20- or 24-foot trailer, and crews range in manpower from three to seven crewmembers. For route work, Mees says a three-man crew is the most efficient solution.

“They will mow, edge, detail around obstacles and do their cleanup with blowers,” he says. On larger commercial properties, ValleyCrest might assign one of its new Isuzu cab units to the site, which holds seven crewmembers.

Depending on the site, ValleyCrest may assign a dedicated mow crew to the property, or a combination crew that also does detail work. The latter works best for weekly service jobs as opposed to large, municipal lots that just need efficient mowing.

Keeping equipment in prime condition is critical no matter what task the crew focuses on. When landscape firms overlook maintenance schedules during the busy season, they end up paying for negligence with costly equipment downtime, Mees says.

“You can’t afford to not have a solid maintenance program of at least doing the basics of oil changes, filters changes and blade sharpening,” Mees says.

Safety is another push at ValleyCrest. Managers across the country call in for a weekly safety meeting where topics often play back to maintenance, such as, “Pay attention to loose bolts that could hurt an employee.”

This message gets carried back to the crews during quick morning meet-ups. Because trailers are prepared the night before – with the exception of small, handheld equipment that might be offloaded and stored to prevent theft – account managers can round up crewmembers for a quick talk before each day begins.

What’s more, account managers’ trucks are parked in the same area, so no time is wasted while rounding up crews and quickly stocking last-minute equipment for the day.

In essence, ValleyCrest’s approach to mowing crew efficiency is a process with wiggle room. Foremen have the flexibility to make in-field decisions, and account managers can rearrange routes to make the best use of equipment and manpower. And the company never forgets the main production engine: its people.

Muscling up a key crew
When Quality Landscaping and Lawn Maintenance landed a couple of large condo complex accounts this year, Mark DuBois, president of the Grafton, Wis., firm, considered adding another mowing crew to manage the square footage.

But he crunched the numbers, figured that an additional crew would cost him $30,000 to $50,000, and decided that the most efficient, profitable way to manage these new customers would be to expand his “No. 1” two-man crew by adding a laborer.

Twelve bucks an hour and an $8,000 mower jived better with his budget.

“That wasn’t an easy decision,” says DuBois, whose company now has one three-man crew, two two-man crews and a one-man band that handles residential accounts only. But it was a profitable choice. “I was able to add an employee and maintain my bottom line because we have a great lead foreman on the crew,” he says.

Crew leadership is key for smooth-running mowing fleets at Quality Landscaping. And foreman are given “all the freedom in the world as far as how they are going to conduct that job site and get the work done,” DuBois says. Foremen know how many man-hours are estimated for each job and they know the company’s three priorities – safety, quality and profit. Their job is to execute and deliver within those parameters.

“We do encourage consistency,” says DuBois. For example: A crewmember is assigned to a riding mower and a regular task for each property. “If one guy is on a riding mower on that property every time, they get into a rhythm and figure out the most efficient way possible to get the job done.”

Providing daily route sheets that outline man-hour goals for every job keeps crews on budget. Those documents also contain notes, special requests and “watch out” warnings for each property. Because man-hours are listed on the top of each sheet, crews can check in at the end of a job and determine their efficiency.

The real productivity killer, DuBois says, is when property location and size don’t mesh. For instance, a large property that demands a three-man crew located on a two-man crew’s route. “We don’t want to crisscross our routes,” DuBois says. “So there are times where a two-man crew might do a three-man crew sized property because it’s just more efficient, even if it will take them longer.”

The drive-time for the larger crew to reach a property out of its service area would be much more of a waste than a crew spending extra time on a job, DuBois says. “Geography and size don’t always match up the way you’d like it – that’s the biggest challenge,” he says.

Crews surely don’t lose time in the morning. That’s because after returning from routes in the afternoon, foremen are responsible for fueling up trucks and equipment, sharpening mower blades and cleaning trucks.

The author is a frequent contributor to Lawn & Landscape.