I am also agreed with your point of view Terrasmooth
If there are bad operators then certainly there are good one also. but only those operators should be removed from the job who damage the equipment. Punishment should be only for those who commit mistake. :bash
i wouldn't say "mistake" exactly. mistakes happen. we can try to prevent, and punish, mut it is just that, a mistake. i believe a better term would be "abuse" even great operators make mistakes.
On most jobs the law of the land is, "Produce or go home!" Unless something is very dangerous, hurting someone, or illegal, good luck saying you don't want to do it.
this, is pretty much universal. only exception, is where production timeline is not emphasized. in that case, things tend to go the opposite, and the work gets milked the bageezas out of. and that brings me to my next point:
I think the rental ops mentioned above that take pictures/video of equipment before it goes out and charge the cost of repairing excessive damage to the renters are on the right track to correcting all of the problems mentioned here.
That same procedure should be applied to assignments of a company's owned equipment, with the project manager assuming the role of renter.
The problem is that few project managers are held accountable for the damage their crews inflict on equipment. So the situation can't even rightly be blamed on the project managers. Whoever set up the structure for accounting for equipment costs needs to wake up and start allocating costs to the only people capable of controlling them.
You want to create an emphasis on equipment-cost control and operator training? Start charging your projects directly for equipment repairs.
Not saying it's easy.
If you have machines jumping routinely from job to job, you have to build in safeguards so that normally expected long-term wear doesn't unfairly burden the project unlucky enough to have the thing go down on their watch.
There must be contractors out there who have some success with this.
Just my .02
Larry
yes, the biggest majority of the problem lies in the hands of the "floor" or "ground" management. this person, or persons is/are supposed to be the main managements right hand. almost all of the time, it turns out to be more of a left foot with uncontrollable spasms. this person mostly has a need to be powerful, and look good. rather, a good manager would look at the big picture and do what is necessary for the workers to work well. in turn, this takes the ability to be more compliant to the workers needs (less powerful feeling) and sometimes take heat for things (not looking good) these guys do actually exist. in the end, though, the numbers come out better. better production:cost ratio. a numbers guy in the office should see that in the end. i have been in the industry my whole working life, basically, and there are 2 big people problems. the management, and the universal feud between menchanics and operators. i happen to be a mechanic, and can't claim innocent to the anger and aggression, but i keep in my head, that the end goal is to keep the stuff moving. another point that i pass on as much as i can, is that the mechanic is often an operators advocate. if you make a point to have their back and look at it from their side. if you relay more than a negative opinion on the situation. take into account the long grueling hours in the seat to mull in their head, often under press. if you do this, you form a good working relationship that makes everything better on both ends. an operator will reciprocate. same goes for operators. remember that we are here to take care of the equipment. we put our heart into it. we do
NOT work for you. when pushing equipment, there is a balance, and it usually takes experience, risk, and tact/feel to operate in it. i have seen the shy guy baby, and over-analize "taking care of" the equipment... to the extent of screaming in my head "put a load on it before she gumms up!" i have also been around more than enough hot-rodders/hot-doggers, and hot-heads, that will absolutely croak without hauling heaps of donkey, to make my stomach churn. the saying where i work is "it all pays by the hour".. and that comes in handy when an operator-abuse repair comes up. well, enough of the rant, and back to the thread specific topic reply. i believe the damage should be addressed as-per case, but many times it would be set between the operator and the manager to take the account/heat of what happened. the mine i work at has a huge paper-trail for each incident, which i think is excessive vs a sit-down, or a couple phone-calls, but toe same end result. you need to learn from it, rather then repeat it to habit level. some guys are going to learn the first time on their own, some need time and patience to learn how to avoid damage/abuse while increasing production. many times, it is a slow-go to re-train bad habits and mind-set, as complacency is a well-rooted problem. i di just that with new safety practices. some bosses hated it, but i sped back up to the good work pace i had before, yet no longer had the normal rushing f-ups we all would fall victim to. it is also not universal. some guys will take it too far at being tentative, and some guys will refuse to comply.
as for the "tracking"..... yah, that really does exist....for quite some time now. about 25 years, that i know of. i have to keep these stupid tripmaster units going, and they are like v2.6.... from the early 90's, which means that there were 6 earlier versions of this platform, and another whole platform before that. long story short- it logs the databuss information of the unit, as well as any other add-ons you wish to implement. the way we have it set-up, an operator logs on, and, until they log-off, you can see location, speed, rpm, switch functions, pto, etc, etc..... if you have something made in the last 10+ years, at least, you can log on to the ecm/bcm/icm/etc and see failure logs and abuse histories. there is also mechanical power-train protection. they make "torque fuses" for the gear-train, that is a collar/shaft welded in the middle of a drive-shaft and you bolt-in the "fuses" to the flanges on them. you choose the size just above what the gear-train can safely sustain, as far as torque shock goes, and they will snap when this is exceeded. if you have ever had a rear-end grenade, then having these installed fleet-wide before-hand would have been likely 1/10th the cost of the single repair. real-world experience: they do absolutely nothing to hinder performance, and can stay in there for the life of the equipment, and actually do take a great amount of acceptable abuse/shock, but they really do work. they simply stop those guys that want to dump the clutch, launch, etc, who would otherwise be tearing up differentials, planetaries, final drives, etc. the shop i currently work at, up at a mine, used to have drivers tear up differentials on a regular basis, as the gross there for a truck is up to 500,000lb (i've actually seen more) and many just blamed it on the trucks being over-loaded. as soon as they implemented the fuses, then the drivers had to wait for a mechanic to show up with new torque fuses, since the drive-line was just free-spinning on itself. this quickly changed things. before, you could not definitely see the habitual abuse that would take out the gear-train, since the trucks were not assigned. instantly, the paperwork showed who was grossly abusing the trucks, and who wasn't.
*first post, btw*
