A fresh start

Before your crews get into the thick of the busy season, setting up an organized system for your tools and equipment can help operations run smoothly.

At the beginning of the season, which started about three weeks ago at John Richmond Landscaping in Richmond, Virginia, all the equipment gets staged in the company’s shop – after it’s been looked over by the company’s freelance mechanic. The mechanic takes the equipment to his garage at the end of the season to evaluate the condition of each piece.

Before it’s go time, the crews meet at the shop to get a look at the new equipment and have it assigned out. The process takes about an hour to complete.

Owner Tom Belden says his team designed a system based on numbers and colors to keep track of their equipment.

Belden runs a total of 11 crews, and rather than assigning equipment and tools to crews, he assigns them to trucks. All vehicles are numbered and match a corresponding color and number on equipment.

“So say truck 10 is numbered, and then we put a solid color or their number and on all their mowers and equipment,” he says. “if you’re on truck 10 you only get the equipment with 10 on it.”

Crew operate open trailers with lock boxes for the smaller equipment and tools like hedge trimmers and blowers.

He says the company has built in flexibility for says when some crews may have more or less crew workers than usual.

“If one guy needs more (equipment) during the day or if one guy needs extra mower, the foremen have to kind of work that out,” he says. “Whoever drives truck 10 he's responsible for his number 10 mower, if he lends it to his friend on number nine, he’s still responsible for it.”

John Richmond previously organized its equipment by color only, but Belden says that system wasn’t exactly foolproof.

“We had issues with things getting misplaced when we just used the color system. They would take their color and spray paint over it, too,” he says. “They can get a little possessive with their equipment over here.”