Efficiency tip: Keeping tabs

PHOTO: ©istock.com/DPimborough

Monday mornings set the pace for Landscape Lighting Pro of Utah’s workweek.

Beginning in 2008, Owner Keith Rosser instated a routine inventory check of all box trucks to reduce—or hopefully nix—any trips back to the shop or to suppliers to retrieve forgotten or unaccounted for service materials.

“Making two trips will never be profitable,” Rosser says. “Not to mention it steals our time from the next job.”

Now, he estimates the Monday morning practice has helped the Sandy, Utah-based landscape lighting company gain back two weeks of lost production per year.

The whole process takes about 10 minutes and requires each two-man install crew to reference a simple two-page spreadsheet.

One column has a count of what should be on the truck—anything used on a daily basis like lamps, screws and wire connectors plus items used “once in a blue moon.” The other column is blank to be filled in by the technician counting how many items are on the truck. Finally, technicians restock items with what’s in the shop inventory.