Diversified growth

JAY BROWNE PHOTOGRAPHYSpringdale Outdoor Services has expanded three-fold in the last five years, since Dave Gantt shifted the business focus from nursery to maintenance, installation and construction. Diversifying the business has been critical in this economy, Gantt says.

With all this change, internal systems and processes needed to be put in place to keep the business running smoothly. Gantt has accomplished a lot in the last year alone. He hired a controller to manage reporting, and he razed the few sheds that were serving as storage units for equipment and replaced those with two new buildings to separate the landscape maintenance and construction operations.

“Splitting up the tools and trucks has helped streamline our operations,” Gantt says. “Rather than having all of the equipment in one building where it is all mixed up and employees with two different agendas meet, the crews that report to each building are responsible for their own tools, and superintendents are responsible for making sure that each crew has the tools they need in the building.”

Another challenge for Springdale Outdoor is that workers live in different cities across the state, and if the job site is close to home they might not report to the office first. Gantt needed a system to deliver equipment to the job site so workers would not waste time driving back and forth, and loading up trucks. Hiring a mechanic fulfilled two needs: equipment transport and repair.  

“When a crew needs a piece of equipment, the mechanic can deliver it to the job site, and if we need to move a piece to a different job site during the day, that enables us to do that without throwing a crew off-track,” Gantt says. “Before, we may have four people in the shop waiting on another crew to come back with a tool or piece of equipment they needed.”

Now, the mechanic can transport equipment from site to site, and crews can keep on working. “The days go a lot smoother, and you notice the difference in the bottom line,” Gantt says.

Gantt holds weekly all-staff meetings, gathering employees from every division to discuss scheduling and other issues. He started holding these meetings two years ago, and since then employees take more interest in being on time to meetings and participating.

There’s better communication, overall. “Employees see the benefit (of the changes) because they can see how a job is coming at the end of the week, and they know where they stand as far as timetable – there’s a better flow of information,” Gantt says.

Having a controller dedicated to keeping books and managing profitability influences accountability in the field.

“Having someone keep an eye on the books daily catches more inconsistencies and mistakes and errors in the field,” Gantt adds, noting that this oversight also encourages supervisors to properly fill out paperwork. “In the field, they don’t like to stop and fill out paperwork, so they don’t do a good job. If you have someone over them to manage it, that makes them take the time to complete paperwork better.”

The result for Springdale Outdoor is improved profitability for each job. “The old saying that ‘Time is money,’ is our goal,” Gantt says. “The main thing we sell in this business is labor, so we have to be efficient with our labor, getting people in and out of our shop and to the job on time.”

Gantt hopes his planning and implementation this year will pay off when the economy brightens. “We have better continuity throughout our business,” he says, adding that crews exceed estimated man-hour goals on jobs now. “As we come out of this recession, we hope to hit the ground running better now than we ever have.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Bay Village, Ohio.

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