august2022 - 6

HI TCHED UP FROM THE EDITOR
The elusive search for
more hours in the day
Don't race against the clock; learn to run with the time you're given.
By John Hitch
Editor-in-chief
@Hitched2Trucks
My whole life, time has been my greatest
adversary. In school and at dead-end jobs,
it held me in place until the bell rang or the
workday ended, and on summer breaks or
vacations, it dragged me along despite my
protest. Then in the military, although I
counted down the days to my enlistment's
end, my job called for a split-second reaction
time, whether it was donning fire response
gear or picking up contacts, assessing threats,
and triangulating ranges.
Then, when I found a pursuit I wanted to
turn into a career-writing-time sped ahead,
occasionally looking back with a mocking grin,
while I huffed and puffed and barely kept up
with various deadlines and life in general.
Now, as editor-in-chief, deadlines I thought
were insurmountable a few years ago seem
laughably quaint. All that running made me
stronger, but it took a heck of a lot of time to
get there.
And it still does. You see, my hackneyed life
hack was to simply divert personal time, mostly
the portion for sleeping, over to work time.
When you do that, you really do have all the
time in the world.
After a year of that, though, this strategy's
negative aspects-chief among them backaches
and burn out-have caught up with
me. Now, it's time to work smarter, not harder,
which requires putting into action novel
concepts such as delegating overall workload
and putting more energy into training staff, as
opposed to trying to do everything myself. I
need to become a master of time management.
And because managers within the transportation
industry have their own sprints and
marathons with clocks and calendars, let me
share a few tips from what little I've gleaned
to help you tack on some extra minutes and
hours to your day.
Take time to organize
your workstation
Saving time starts with being more efficient,
and for that you may want to consider adopting
a lean mindset and practicing the 5S
pillars: sort, set in order, shine, standardize,
and sustain. In the shop, this means keeping
tools organized with shadow foam inserts for
each tool drawer. This ensures certain sizes of
wrenches are always in the same place, and if
one is missing, you know you accidentally left
it under the hood of your last job.
If most of your time is behind a keyboard,
invest in a little preventive maintenance
on your desktop and inbox. Think about
how often you spend searching for a file or
email. Apply the Set in Order pillar to these
areas with properly named folders and
files that can be searched with a keyword.
Bookmarking frequently visited sites,
like
TMC's online Recommended Practices Manual
(or FleetMaintenance.com), can also shave some
seconds off your searches.
Find a quiet moment
and let your brain
be inspired.
635805812 |
IconicBestiary |
Getty Images
Find time for training
First thing to note: Technicians will leave a
company if they feel they did not get enough
training to build new skills. Compare that to
how much time and money is spent on finding
and training a new hire. Next, ask yourself
how productive the shop would be if everyone
reached a certain level of diagnostics mastery
or could perform alignments. Nearly every OE
has some sort of virtual training, and you can
always work with vendors to set up on-site
6 Fleet Maintenance | August 2022
training. The subject of this month's cover
story (Pg. 24), Fleet Fast, excels here and can
take on the biggest jobs despite being a small
body shop. For them, speed and productivity
are tied to the amount of training provided.
Become a technology
early adopter
While being the first to beta test a piece of
tech has its disadvantages as the bugs are
worked out, keep apprised of as much of
the new technology in your sector as possible
and make calculated investments. This
again helped Fleet Fast when they implemented
PPG's AdjustRite estimating system.
Similarly, other fleets used tech to monitor
wheel ends to catch thermal events or partnered
with vendors to analyze used engine
oil and extend oil drain intervals.
The next big thing may be augmented reality,
as wearable computers are finding a home
in the shop for next-level time management.
These connected devices fit on a user's head
and include a microphone, speaker, display,
and camera. Using the RealWear Navigator
500, which can be 100% voice-operated, a
MAN dealership in Romania cut diagnosis
time by 75% and reduced travel time by 50%.
This is because the technician can instantly
bring up schematics on the monocular
display without leaving the truck and, for
trickier troubleshooting, can remotely call
up an expert who can share their eyes from
a laptop and walk them through the repair.
Prepare for the future
I recently met up with my old boss, Travis
Hessman, who warned me about working too
long on various stories and pet projects (I never
got around to listening, though). He's an acolyte
of futurism, lean process, and, of course, is now
even more of my boss as a VP. The last thing
he said to me may be worth following: You can
spend all the time in the world trying to be
more efficient and eking out more productivity,
but it's not worth much if you don't also step
away, find a quiet spot, and just let your mind
drift to where your best ideas and innovative
practices hide.
" You have to slow down and think, " he said.
" Otherwise, you spend your whole life firefighting. "
http://www.twitter.com/Hitched2Trucks http://www.FleetMaintenance.com
august2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of august2022
