Want to Become More Resilient? Learn Something New.

Want to Become More Resilient? Learn Something New.

In this week’s installment of Lifelong Learning, we are pleased to introduce our new guest writer, Kari Bogdan. Kari Bogdan has nearly 20 years of experience in the training and development industry.  Her expertise is design and development of engaging instructor-led training, online education, and curriculum development.  Currently, she is a Learning Specialist for Children’s Wisconsin.  In her first blog post for Learning Without Scars, she challenges readers with her title: Want to Become More Resilient? Learn Something New.

Kari serves on the Board of Directors for the Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the Association for Talent Development (SEWI-ATD) as Vice President of Professional Development. She is also a member of the Milwaukee Chapter of the Women Leaders Association. 

Kari has worked in a variety of industries with a focus on health care over the past 10 years.  From 2003-2007, she was the Manager of Continuous Education for the Associated Equipment Distributors.  Previously, Kari was a video and multimedia producer for over 9 years working on training, sales, and corporate communication.

Kari holds a Master’s Degree in Adult Education from Capella University in Minneapolis, MN and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Want to become more resilient? Learn something new.

Before 2019, I didn’t realize how much it meant to me to talk to my coworkers about projects or even their life experiences on a regular basis. It struck me the other day that, besides the companionship or the environment of a physical workspace, the thing that I was also missing was the opportunity to learn and grow. It wasn’t until I sought out new ways of learning that I began to feel a little better about what was going on around me.

Numerous studies have pointed to the benefits of life-long learning. One of them is a higher level of resiliency or the ability to cope with change. Resilience is defined as the ability to cope and thrive in the face of negative events, challenges or adversity. It can lead to improved self-esteem, a sense of control over life events, a sense of purpose in life, and improved interpersonal relationships1,2. The result is a more fulfilled individual. Organizations have also found that resiliency contributes to greater job satisfaction, work happiness, organizational commitment and employee engagement.

Think about the last time you met someone who had a really interesting hobby or a cool job. You found yourself asking, “How did they do that?” You decided to learn more.

You took on a challenge, you overcame an obstacle and you did it! The feeling you experienced was really good. That is a demonstration of resilience. 

Becoming more resilient is something that you can achieve. There are more opportunities to learn than ever before. It does take some effort. In the end, however, I have no doubt that you will find is worth it. If you want to learn more, this article can provide you with some good insights and advice. Click here. 

Here are some key things that I have learned about trying something new. You may have heard some of these before, but perhaps it has been a while. 

  1. Find your motivation: Ask questions like, “Why am I doing this?” “What is in it for me?” “How do I hope to feel once I have done it?” 
  2. Start by focusing on one achievable thing. If it is something long term, break it into manageable chunks.
  3. Take time out each week to focus on that one thing. Schedule it and don’t move it.
  4. Be curious. Look for resources of information that are reputable or people with experience who can offer advice or show you how to do it.
  5. Let someone else know what you are working on so that they can support you.
  6. Don’t give up if you make a mistake or fail. Think about what you learned in the process.
  7. Keep track of what you have accomplished and celebrate your wins.

If you have done this before, then you know that you are capable. Find your motivation and get to it.

 

References

  1. McAllister, Margaret, and Jessica McKinnon. “The importance of teaching and learning resilience in the health disciplines: a critical review of the literature.” Nurse Education Today 29.4 (2009): 371-379.
  2. Masten AS, Cutuli JJ, Herbers JE, Reed MG. 12 Resilience in Development. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. 2009; 21:117.
  3. Goh J, Pfeffer J, Zenios SA. The relationship between workplace stressors and mortality and health costs in the United States. Management Science. 2015;62(2):608-28.
  4. American Psychological Association. “Building your resilience.” www.apa.org. February 1, 2020. Accessed October 14, 2022: https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience
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Friday Filosophy v.10.14.2022

Friday Filosophy v.10.14.2022

Milton Friedman; (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler and others, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, when it turned to new classical macroeconomics  heavily based on the concept of rational expectations. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, Thomas Sowell and Robert Lucas Jr.

Friedman’s challenges to what he later called “naive Keynesian theory” began with his interpretation of consumption, which tracks how consumers spend. He introduced a theory which would later become part of the mainstream and among the first to propagate the theory of consumption smoothing. During the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing Keynesian government policies, and described his approach (along with mainstream economics) as using “Keynesian language and apparatus” yet rejecting its initial conclusions. He theorized that there existed a natural rate of unemployment and argued that unemployment below this rate would cause inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was in the long run vertical at the “natural rate” and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation. Friedman promoted a macroeconomic viewpoint known as Monetarism and argued that a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the preferred policy, as compared to rapid, and unexpected changes. 

His ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008.

After retiring from the University of Chicago in 1977, and becoming Emeritus professor in economics in 1983, Friedman was an advisor to Republican President Ronald Reagan and Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal government intervention in social matters. He once stated that his role in eliminating conscription in the United States was his proudest achievement. In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax, and school vouchers and opposition to the war on drugs and support for drug liberalization policies. His support for school choice led him to found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, later renamed EdChoice.

Friedman’s works cover a broad range of economic topics and public policy issues. His books and essays have had global influence, including in former communist states. A 2011 survey of economists commissioned by the EJW ranked Friedman as the second-most popular economist of the 20th century, following only John Maynard Keynes. Upon his death, The Economist described him as “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century … possibly of all of it”.

  • If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
  • Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
  • When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.
  • I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash – a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A.
  • The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties’ benefit.
  • Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.
  • The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.
  • So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
  • Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it… gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
  • Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
  • And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you’ll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

The Time is Now.

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Preventative Maintenance Agreements: A Great Thing Deserves Great Execution

Preventative Maintenance Agreements: A Great Thing Deserves Great Execution

Guest writer Dale Hanna continues his writing on preventative maintenance with this week’s blog post – “Preventative Maintenance Agreements: A Great Thing Deserves Great Execution.”

In our last blog, Preventative Maintenance Agreements – A Necessary Hero, we spoke about the important contributions PM agreements can make to dealer bottom line.  They can drive high quality revenue, income and customer satisfaction.

They key word is “can”.  As with all great things, they are only as good as the execution.  In this blog, we will focus on four areas of PM agreements and how we might increase the efficiency we deliver the services to our customers.  This has always been vital, and especially now with the significant labor shortage.

Do Not Miss a PM Service and Do Not Lose Sleep Over It

There is nothing more stressful than missing a PM service on a customer’s machine under a PM agreement.  There is nothing more annoying than trying to call customer multiple times to get the hour reading.  How do we do better?

For newer machines, more and more of them are coming with factory installed telematics devices.  Factories provide software system that can usually alert you about PM coming due or past due.  The common problem here is when you have PM agreements on multiple brands.  Each factory system works differently, and you will likely need to log into multiple different systems.  Through a technology called API (Application Programming Interface), computers can talk with each other.  Most factory systems offer APIs for you to use.  If you have the right software system, hours, and other information, from all the brands you carry can flow into one system and all assets can be managed the same way.

How about the machines that do not come with factory installed telematics devices.  Aftermarket devices are available, and the data can flow into the same aggregating system mentioned above.  The cost of the aftermarket system is low comparing to the cost of doing everything manually.

Now you have all the PM information in one place, issuing alerts, and potentially managing workorders from one system, will drastically increase your efficiency.

 Fault Codes, When It Rains, It Pours

Fault codes are great, they give us valuable information to keep the machines from suffering major failures.   The three common problems are there are too many fault codes to be handled manually, some of the fault codes are not useful but take up bandwidth, and the formats are different from different manufactures. 

Here are what some of the tech savvy dealers are doing to maximize the benefit efficiently.

  1. Using APIs to get all the fault codes from different manufactures into one place.
  2. Translate the different priority systems from different manufactures into a unified system, such as Red, Yellow, Green, Gray or 1,2,3,4.
  3. Map the messages into the same format.
  4. Triage the codes efficiently using knowledgebase,
  5. Create workorders immediately or with a PM workorder based on severity and usage.

Inspections, You Can’t Fix What You Do Not Know 

Fault codes can’t tell you everything that can go wrong with a machine.  For example, they can’t tell you a belt is about to break, or a hose is about to leak. 

Inspections fill in the gap.  To do so efficiently, the inspections need to be electronic instead of paper based.  Paper inspections can days to get to the office.  They can be hard to read, and it will be hard to attach pictures and videos.  As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

Electronic inspection results, including pictures and videos, show up in the office real time as long as there is Wi-Fi or cell connection.  SN or VIN can be scanned in accurately and linked to customers stock unit ID. 

With an all-in-one system, the inspection results can be viewed and managed with PM’s and fault codes.  Workorders can be issued to handle one, some or all the problems.  The addressed and unaddressed problems are always tracked so the status is clear, and nothing is forgotten. 

The Devil Is in the Fluids 

The last piece of the puzzle is fluid analysis.  As we all know, it is a requirement for most warranty to be valid. 

Fluid analysis results are still predominated delivered via lab’s own websites or through PDF’s.  One of the biggest complaints we hear in the field is that the information is hard to aggregate and use efficiently, even though the information itself is very useful. 

As the world moves forward, more and more labs are offering APIs, just like how other information, such as fault codes, hours, etc. are delivered.  Again, we can use the same all-in-one system to aggregate the fluid analysis data with PM alerts, fault codes, electronic inspection.  This way, PM agreements can be managed well, and other services can be delivered efficiently and giving customers the best experience possible.  A triple win for you. 

PM agreements are a necessary hero to drive high quality revenue and customer satisfaction.  It will only work well if it is executed well.  The only way to do so in today’s labor shortage and data explosion world is to leverage the right technology.

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Is the Preventative Maintenance Business Part of Your Business Plan?

Is the Preventative Maintenance Business Part of Your Business Plan?

Guest writer Bill Pyles writes this week’s blog post on preventative maintenance: is the preventative maintenance business part of your business plan?

I sure hope the answer is a resounding yes! The PM business adopted by OEM equipment dealers goes back to the 1980s and is a win-win for both dealers and contractors. A properly maintained machine, that’s documented, is worth more when the time comes to replace it.

I can still remember the day the subject of our dealer doing in the field PMs was brought to the table. I had a strong objection that contractors would not pay the dealer to do their PMs. PMs were perceived by many as a necessary evil not requiring a higher-level tech from a dealer. By the way, this type of thinking was also applied to undercarriage management; more on this in another blog. 

Not taking the PM program seriously can lead to unplanned downtime and poor machine availability, which could be a perceived reflection of the equipment and the dealer. A machine model with poor availability will more than likely not be considered when replacement time comes. 

PMs were something the contractor would take care of on the weekend or after hours. Unfortunately, too often, due to the demands of the job the machine was on would delay getting a PM completed on time. I have seen engines go 300 to 400 hours past due on a PM service. Unfortunately, the additional wear caused by the contaminated fluids and excessive hours cannot be put back into the engine. And if this trend continues, the engine is certain to fail at an earlier hour meter reading than expected. Times this scenario over the entire fleet and you’ll quickly realize that PMs are critical to your operation and machine availability. This applies to contractor’s and dealer’s rental fleets. 

So how do we make sure your PM program is on track? The first thing you’ll need is a good PM scheduling tool. It will take some time to load all the equipment into a scheduling tool, but it’s time well spent. A good scheduling tool will keep track of the machine hours, create alerts, list the items to be serviced on each PM along with a parts list when a machine is coming due as well as keep maintenance history and oil sample reports in one convenient place. It will also interact with your telematics to keep hours current. A good place to start is to flag the machine when it’s within 40 hours of being due. This should provide ample time to schedule the PM due. I would also flag a machine over 40 hours due as a past-due PM for tracking purposes. Your goal should be 95% or higher for on-time PMs. 

Next, you’ll need a dedicated PM vehicle. If you try to do PMs out of a service truck, hauling buckets of oil, you’ll have issues capturing the drain oils for proper disposal. The size of the truck will depend on the number of machines you’ll be servicing. Your vehicle could be a smaller truck with a lube skid. A lube skid works well in a rental operation with smaller machines, skid steers, small rollers, loader backhoes, etc. 

If you have a medium fleet of small to larger equipment you may want to look at a dedicated PM truck. These trucks can be custom-made to provide you with adequate new fluids as well as waste oil tanks. Oil recovery systems that pick-up waste oil quickly and efficiently and metered oil reels to quickly refill lubricated compartments. Be generous with external lighting around the outside of the truck; required for doing PMs at night. Be sure to add an air compressor to blow out radiators and some air filters. Work with a reputable truck vendor for building a truck that will fit your needs. I’ve worked with a few truck vendors thru the years and the one I could always depend on was Nichols Fleet Equipment in Chattanooga Tennessee. Experience does count! 

So now we have a scheduling tool and for the vehicle to do the PMs we’ll need to add the PM Tech. This person does not need to be your number one technician, nor should this person be right out of technical school. The PM tech needs to understand all the items that make up the various levels of PMs. A 500-hour PM is much more than changing the engine oil, and fuel filters and looking at the air filter, lots more! The tech needs to understand how to properly take an oil sample. I suggest taking all the oil samples at each service. Some suggest taking an oil sample only when the fluid is changed. I do not see much value in taking the first hydraulic oil sample at 5,000 hours. An incorrectly taken oil sample will result in erroneous results. Erroneous results lead to bad decision-making and could result in catastrophic downtime. Taking oil samples at the time of a PM service will create a history of the components of the machine that will show trends, good trends when the oil sample report comes back with no alerts, and bad trends, for example when sodium in the engine is trending upwards. Sodium in engine oil could be an indication of a small coolant leak into the engine. You can schedule the machine down, fix a minor problem and go back to work. Or you can ignore the sodium in the engine and have unplanned downtime, a possible engine failure event that usually happens on an important time-sensitive job. Be sure to have someone on staff that can interpret oil sample reports!

Most equipment OEMs market their brand of fluids. This presents a problem if you have a large mixed fleet. Substituting Cat Drive Train oil for hydraulic oil is not recommended. Mixing different types of hydraulic fluids can cause serious damage to the hydraulic system. Mixing different types of long-life coolants can cause problems. When setting up your PM vehicle be sure to review the correct fluids needed for your fleet. You do not need to use the OEM recommended fluids if the fluids you are using meet the OEM spec. I suggest using quality fluids and fuel to maximize your PM intervals. You will notice most OEM PM intervals are “recommended” intervals. If you have a machine working in a quarry, transfer station, or any other domiciled location, you can extend the PM interval if the oil samples indicate no issues. Remember, the oil does not wear out, rather the additives deplete causing the fluid to not perform as it should. A good oil sampling program keeps your fleet in good operating condition. 

Your PM tech should do a walk-around inspection and a safety inspection during each PM interval. Therefore, the PM tech must be familiar with the machines he or she is servicing. The inspection form can be custom-made and part of your PM scheduler or work order system. The intent is to keep small problems small, document all machine issues and follow up with corrective action. If there is an issue that can wait till the next PM, it should be noted in the scheduling tool and pop up as a reminder at the next PM interval. Pictures are very helpful in documenting machine issues or damage. I recommend the PM tech also take pictures of the filters replaced during the PM service clearly showing the date and hours the new filter was installed. And while we are talking about filters, I do suggest using genuine OEM filters. Experience has shown me that many filters look the same on the outside but are a world different on the inside. Installing an aftermarket filter with the wrong micron rating will allow larger wear particles to pass through damaging critical components. OEM filters are specifically designed for your equipment! 

The PM tech should also look at and document all machine fault codes. Then the codes should be cleared allowing the tech to determine if the fault codes are active or logged. Reacting to an insignificant code could prevent the machine from going down hard tomorrow. It may be a good time to do a forced regeneration to keep your diesel particulate filter operating normally.

Bottomline, be sure to put a person who is knowledgeable of your equipment, fluids and coolants, oil sampling and oil sample interpretation, and a repair before failure attitude in charge of your PM program. Set machine availability goals to measure the effectiveness of your PM program. Set on-time PM goals. Keep electronic records and make them available to a potential buyer of your used machine. This is especially important for a dealer’s rental fleet. It would send the wrong message if a potential buyer of a dealer’s rental equipment asks to see the PM history and oil samples and there are none or hit and miss.

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,

Intellectual Capital

Intellectual Capital

In this week’s Lifelong Learning post, Founder and Managing Member Ron Slee continues to look at employees as assets. Read on to learn about Intellectual Capital.

In an earlier post on Lifelong Learning, I posed a question to you – “Are your employee’s assets or expenses?” I hope every one of you said they are assets. Today I am wanting to look at your employees from a different perspective. I want to look at your employees as an “Asset on your Balance Sheet.” Imagine if you took all of the knowledge, skills and experiences of your employees and were able to put it into a container?

Look at the skills required to operate your business.

Selling. Leading. Buying. Repairing. Maintaining. Data Storage. Warehousing. Shipping. Receiving. Transportation. Ordering. Purchasing. Stocking. Paying Bills. Payroll. And there are many more.

On top of that you have the specific skills within each discipline. Take selling as an example. The function requires Research, Goal Setting, Asking Questions, Overcoming Objections, Explaining Benefits, and Closing the Sale. Each job function can be dissected into the differing skills required to perform it. That is one of the byproducts of our Job Function Skills Assessments. Most of us view a job simply as that. I would ask that you look at it in a different manner. Each job is a composite of a lot of different items. Let me go in a different direction for a moment. Let’s look at the job of a surgeon. What is it? Is it simply using a scalpel and cutting. Or are the years of training given to the surgeon expecting that they will see with trained eyes and identify problems inside our body and then knowing what to do about it? Of course, it is the latter, isn’t it?

So, when people take our assessments, they are taken aback at some of the questions. A typical comment coming back to us after the employee completes their assessment is that I wasn’t aware that was part of my job. If we look at the telephone and counter selling job function, most of the employees have done it for a long time. They typically are on autopilot. However, they are often extremely busy. They don’t have time for many niceties. That is a shame. That is a result of not having enough people to do the job properly. That is the negative result of sales per employee. (Too many “bosses” think that a high sales per employee is a good thing. That is totally wrong. Completely wrong) Customer retention. Customer loyalty. They are critical measures of your success as a business. Market share is another.

Well in the parts business over the past forty years market share in parts and service has dropped by more than 50%. Many of you will argue with me as a result of your sales revenue continuing to go up. Perhaps many of you will point to the proliferation of competitors as the cause of this reduction. I will respectfully disagree. This drop in market share is a direct result of too few people serving customers doing too much work. 

Look at your service department as a good example. Surveys done by industry associations point out that 15% of the customers who purchase labor from an equipment dealer “defect” each year. Let me express that another way for you to better make my point. 15% of your service customers STOP buying labor from you on an annual basis. That means that you lose 50% of your customers over a five-year period. Don’t believe me? Check it out. Get a report in name sequence. Alphabetically. Compare the list from five years ago in a calendar year to the current year. In our case today compare 2021 to 2016. That is a gap of five years. Get the total number of customers in 2016 and compare that to 2021. In many cases the number will be very close to the same. Now go through and compare the two lists side by side. Name by name. How many names purchased labor in 2016 that did not purchase in 2021. I suspect you will find the number to be a very sobering illustration of the point I am trying to make with you.

In parts it is not as stark a defection rate but it is equally as disturbing.

Your employees are assets for your business. They are the people that create the glue, that bond your customers to your business. Too many of you view, these employees, your heroes, simply as tools in a toolbox. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sales per employee metric is given lip service. It is not the trigger that it should be used to hire people. In the 1980’s the sales per employee number, widely accepted in the industry was $600,000/parts employee/year. That number did not include the Parts Management nor the Product Support Sales team. For many of the dealers with which I have worked over the past five years that sales per employee number exceeds $1,000,000/employee. That means that the people working on your counters and telephones serving your customers are overworked. From the 1980 metric 5 people were required to do $3,000,000 per year. That job today it is being done by 3 people. How can this be allowed to happen? 

There is a very old expression. “You reap what you sow” The market share reduction is a direct result of this excessive sales per employee. It is a result of the employee NOT being viewed as an asset but as simply a tool to be used. This is wrong. It needs to change.

The time is now.     

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Friday Filosophy v.10.07.2022

Friday Filosophy v.10.07.2022

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB, FBA; (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots. His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, challenging the ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. He argued that aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment, and since wages and labor costs are rigid downwards the economy will not automatically rebound to full employment. Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in late 1936. By the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes’s policy recommendations. Almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes’s death in 1946. As a leader of the British delegation, Keynes participated in the design of the international economic institutions established after the end of World War II but was overruled by the American delegation on several aspects.

Keynes’s influence started to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo–American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favorably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy. However, the advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought. Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by President Barack Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, and other heads of governments. 

When Time magazine included Keynes among its Most Important People of the Century in 1999, it stated that “his radical idea that governments should spend money they don’t have may have saved capitalism.” The Economist has described Keynes as “Britain’s most famous 20th-century economist.” In addition to being an economist, Keynes was also a civil servant, a director of the Bank of England, and a part of the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. 

  • The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
  • Ideas shape the course of history.
  • Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
  • Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
  • By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
  • The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
  • Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.
  • The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
  • There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
  • Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
  • For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
  • If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
  • Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
  • The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.

The Time is Now.

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Preventative Maintenance

Preventative Maintenance

This week, our guest writer Dale Hanna delivers another powerful blog post, this time on the multiple benefits of preventative maintenance.

Service revenue has been the most important contributor to the bottom line for many dealers.  When a strong demand for equipment coupled with a shortage of new equipment, service becomes even more important.  That is the world we live in today.

Preventative Maintenance Contracts – A Necessary Hero

PM contracts/agreements is a part of the services provided and has its unique importance.  In this two-part series, I would like to discuss the impact of PM contracts/agreements we do not usually think about, and, in the next blog, how to leverage technology to maximize the value of PM contracts/agreements.

Not All Revenues Are Created Equal

The valuations of software companies have increased substantially.  In recent years, the driving force has been the introduction of SaaS (Software as a Service).  The secret sauce here is the recognition that not all revenues are created equal.  The differentiator is the predictability of revenue.  Predictable revenue is worth multiple times more than the revenue that has to be earned in the future.

PM contracts/agreements make this portion of the service revenue predictable, not to mention that it also makes your connection to your customers predictable.

It actually gets better from here.  One of the biggest problems in any service organization comes from the reactive nature.  In the break/fix world, service work can be feast-or-famine.  We do not know what will break today and it can be very hard to balance the workload and keep the customers happy.  By comparison, we have flexibility in performing PM contracts/agreements/agreements.  As long as we stay in the acceptable range, we have the leeway in determining when the work will be done.  This will increase technician efficiency, technician job satisfaction, and overall Service department profitability.

PM contracts/agreements generate revenue, and the unique nature of PM contracts/agreements make this revenue better in more ways than one.

 It Is Not Just the Revenue from PM Contracts/agreements

The revenue generated by the PM contracts/agreements should never be limited to the PM’s.  With the right strategy and tools, a machine monitor specialist can generate more than $5,000,000 service revenue in year.

When we combine fault code monitoring, preventative maintenance, inspection and fluid analysis (commonly known as condition monitoring), we are in a position to create high valued, pro-active service opportunities for our customers.  In the end, it is the uptime without drama that is the holy grill.

Fault codes are available on many new machines.  More manufactures are providing fault codes for their machines, and, with each introduction of new models, more fault codes also become available every day.  Not all fault codes have the same level of urgency, many can be addressed at the time of PM services with parts pre-ordered and enough time scheduled.  If you sell and service multiple lines, fault codes may not come in the same format from different manufactures.  This can be daunting to manage manually but effectively handled by the proper applications to keep your machine monitor specialist working efficiently.

Inspections are critical.  With electronic inspections, problems discovered can be transmitted real time and organized by priorities.  Pictures and videos in modern electronic inspection apps increase communication efficiency dramatically.  Many problems found during inspection can also be scheduled to be addressed during the next PM service.  

Fluid analysis reports are vital.  The challenge is to be able to take the right actions, especially if you are watching over hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of machines.  Reading one report at a time will not come close to getting the job done.  Luckily, more and more labs are starting to provide API’s (Application Programming Interface) to deliver the fluid analysis data to their customers.  API’s (Application Programming Interface) are ways for your computer to talk with the lab’ computer the get fluid analysis data electronically.  The data received in this form can be stored in organized databases to be used easily.  

We can have all the fault codes, PM service alerts, findings from inspections and fluid analysis in one place to efficiently service our customers in a pro-active and effective way.  These are not just revenue opportunities beyond PMs, but planned revenue opportunities beyond PMs, a higher valued revenue.  

When You Change the Game in Customer Experience

If we look one step further, how do we increase market share in today’s competitive environment?  While the advancements in machines are amazing and will continue to be, dealers are noticing brand differentiation becoming more and more of a challenge.  We see the battle of the future being fought on customer experience.

What defines the core of customer experience when there is more work than people?  To help customers increase uptime at a reasonable cost.  Whoever can do this the best will have the strategic advantage.  How do we deliver the best customer experience based on this definition?  The PM contracts/agreements might just be the right area to focus on.

PM contracts/agreements, like anything else, will not solve all the problems, but it is a necessary hero to drive high quality revenue and customer satisfaction.

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Bite-Sized Pieces

Bite-Sized Pieces

Curriculum designer Caroline Slee-Poulos joins us for this week’s instalment on Lifelong Learning: Bite-Sized Pieces.

I don’t know about all of you, but I do know that when I was growing up my mom always made sure to correct me when I tried to eat extra-large bites of food. I was often guilty of this when it came to twirling my pasta. Anyone else?

It isn’t just food that matters when it comes to bite-sized pieces: it’s learning, too. While there is some data on the human attention span to indicate that we can maintain focus, or concentration, is around 45 minutes. In fact, prevailing practices in education suggest that all students should take a “brain break” at that point in a lesson. Yes, this even applies to adult students. You can read about this here.

This is the “why” behind our class structures. Rather than a long learning segment, we stick with the shorter, bite-sized pieces. Our students spend approximately 15 to 20 minutes of learning before each quick check for understanding. This built-in brain break means each individual has a clear moment in the class to pause and do something else.

For the students who look back at their time in classrooms as an unpleasant memory, this offers a chance to reset what learning means.

Isn’t it time for you to invest in yourself with Learning?

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