Change is on its Way!

Well I am officially past my first 90 days of employment now with the Four Seasons in Dallas. I am not going to pretend it has been the easiest 90 days but we are now peaking our head at the correct path moving forward.

The average age of equipment at our facility is at 9years old and an average of around 4000 hours of use. That equipment, at least 90 percent of it, has been outside in the elements. For any of you that manage turf equipment you know the impact this has on the life of the equipment as well as the rapid decline that comes from this. It results in higher R&M costs, more labor to repair issues and leaves the door open for anything to go wrong at any time. The tough part for me is seeing all the things I need to change and wanting to attack them all right away. It would be nice if things worked that way but the reality is you have to knock them out one at a time.

Our first goal was to really create a story of how our facility currently operates and nail down key issues that need our attention now. LOL There are a lot of them! However the company has made a significant step forward. In the first 90days I have ordered 4 Fairway mowers, 2 Tee and Approach mowers and 3 new carts. We are also as I write this installing a 30x90x12 storage facility to store equipment in. I will write more about this in my next entry. This alone will really help solve some apparent issues right off the bat. I will also be refurbishing quite a few pieces of equipment this winter to help position us to have less down time during the next summer. We have secured some added funding to really help get the equipment in the shape it needs to be to do the job.

My next 90 days I am focusing my efforts on the facility. This is where the second focus needs to go. We are quite a ways behind on really making the shop operate efficiently. There are a few real key pieces of equipment that we need to secure and we also need to do a lot of organizing on the parts room and areas inside the facility to save us time. Having 3 guys in the shop we really have to get a routine down because being reactive just will not cut it. We need to be able to anticipate issues and address them instead of having to react to them as they come. This is a real key to getting us to a place where maintenance takes the key role and repair is something we do as needed. Right now the roles are reversed. I really see a significant change coming soon as long as the pieces fall into place we can look to have a drastically different 2013 where quality and financial savings work hand in hand.