Saving by Spending

Feature Story Saving by Spending

In an industry that never stops moving forward with innovations, it seems almost impossible to think about how much our tools help us as landscapers to guide and drive our day-to-day businesses. Across the board many of us use a wide variety of tools, systems, and strategies to reach our goals of success. At a quick glance, some of these innovations may seem daunting and easy to overlook when there are clients looking for bids, materials to purchase and crews to run. When these innovations are applied correctly within an organization it will help bring many landscape businesses to the next level of financial success.

On any given day or job, landscapers are required to have a wide variety of tools in order to get the job done. These tools are a major part of what helps some of the biggest landscape companies do so well. It is very easy to overlook equipment purchases, repairs, and tracking, but if not monitored

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closely these tools can lead a business down a road of financial despair. With the proper inventory management system, a landscape company can make sure where they spend their money in regards to equipment. These systems may help show that a piece of equipment is out of warranty and that due to depreciation values it is no longer worth repairing. This saves the company money on repair costs and down time over a short period of time. An inventory system will also make sure that the proper pieces of equipment are allocated to the proper crews. By making sure that the right tools/equipment are on the job, you are able to make your crews more efficient and are able to bid jobs more competitively. There are many different systems that are built to suit companies of all sizes and fields. For large companies with multiple branches, a GPS inventory system may be more enticing because it offers them the ability to track pieces of equipment between locations. For smaller companies like many of us, this may not be feasible to use, so there are other options as well. There are systems that help allocate tools/ equipment by using a scanning system to upload them online. Systems like this are great because within a few seconds, you can pull up information such as the purchase date, year of product, serial number, and any special notes that are associated with that piece of equipment. Whether you go for a complex or simple inventory system, it will help save time and money for your company.

Here at Monello Landscape Industries we have a blend of different inventory management systems that help us save time and money for our crews/managers. For our smaller pieces of equipment that are not trucks, we like to use a scanning system. By implementing this scanning system we are able to track the make/ model of a tool, the year it was purchased, what repairs were done to it in its lifetime, and what crew currently has it in their possession. This crucial bit of information has a big impact on the needs of the company and the crews. It helps develop crew needs, budgets, and equipment management for the duration of the season. The foremen of our crew have a buy-in with this system because it gives them ownership of the equipment. Over the course of the season foremen have a sense of pride over their equipment, which translates to their work. We have taken this system a step forward by morphing it into a rental system for tools we do not always use. The managers like the rental system because we are able to not put a lot of wear and tear on things we do not use often, while helping the company avoid costly rental fees. The rental system puts a sense of ownership with our foreman because they are required to bring back that asset on its return date, which is also shown on the scanning system. On our trucks we use a GPS tracking system to manage our fleet. This system helps keep our trucks as efficient as possible by weaning out the

by Marcelo Simone & Brian Piacente, Monello Landscape Industries

out of the way deli stops, the long route back to the yard, and your employees. These training sessions could go with seaby keeping idle time down to a minimum. Not only does sonal topics and offer a great hands-on experience for your this system help efficiency, but helps provide our employees to hone their skills. Whatever method customers with information that may be help- you decide to use it will benefit your business ful for them. None of the work would be done with- “...our because your employees will be much more efficient, more safe on jobs, and at the same out the dedicated employees that many of us have. With that being said, our employees are time increase the quality of work. In general, there are many differemployees are one of the leading factors of success or failure in a business. one of the leading ent ways that a landscape company can save money, but it really comes down to Without that you can find yourself with plenty of sold projects, but may not make much profit after the completion factors of success or failure in a the execution of these methods. Without the buy-in from all levels, ownership to field staff, you will find that these because your crews are not trained to be efficient. Trained employees are not only business. ” methods will not be able to work to their maximum potential. Focusing on some of efficient, but are safe under the right condi- the bigger things for your company will be tions, which could be massive savings for many greatly beneficial down the road because you different sides of your business. Properly training will be able to save plenty of time and money. It is your employees on equipment will not only help on the important to find what works best for your company and wear and tear of said tool, but will help ensure that it is being mold it into working with all your other systems. used as it was intended. We have all heard of stories about mowers flipping, trucks causing damage, and windows being Marcelo Simone attended the County College of Morris for his broken from weed wackers. Many of these incidents prob- Landscape Certificate in 2016. Marcelo is a part of the National Asably happened due to a lack of training with the equipment. sociation of Landscape Professionals(NALP) where he has attended Training your employees can happen through a few different 2 National Collegiate Landscape Competitions. He is also an active ways, depending on the size of your company. Many people have begun to use video training because it can cover a wide range of topics in the landscape industry. Some of the more advanced training options also give you the ability to record Landscape Industry Certified Technician within the NJLCA. Marcelo has worked within the industry for 9 years starting from his own company to working for larger landscape firms. He is currently an Account Manager/Production Manager at Monello Landscape Industries. Brian Piacente graduated from SUNY Cobleskill in 2011 with a BT and track what your employees have been trained, which in Landscape Contracting. Brian is also a Certified Landscape Techniwould help ensure everyone has the same level of knowl- cian (CLT). He has been in the landscape industry for 14 years from edge. Other ways companies can train their employees are working in nurseries to irrigation/lighting companies to design build by holding weekly/monthly in-field training sessions to show firms. He currently is an Account Manager/Production Manager at Monello Landscape Industries.