Welcome to this week’s Primed Insight. Today I want to take you on a journey. I want you to imagine that you’re the owner of a large football team, and you’re sinking a bunch of money in to make sure they win every single week. However, during game day, you have no idea whether you’re winning or losing. There’s no game board, there’s no stats, you don’t know if they’re executing efficiently or if they’re fumbling every play. You don’t even know how many players are on the field, and you can’t predict the final score until the game’s over.
That’s blind, risky gambling. Sadly, this analogy holds true for blasting companies that don’t recall these five daily metrics. These metrics are your game stats. They report your productivity, whether you’re winning or losing, or if you’re going to run into overtime.
Number one, how many blasters were blasting today? This will tell you if there’s anyone that’s not working, or if you should add one more guy to boost your productivity to get the job done.
Number two, how many square feet or meters were blasted today? That’ll give you a daily accurate measure on the timeline of the project—how much you got done, how much you got left to go.
Number three, the abrasive. How much was used today? That’ll tell you if you’re using too much or too little, and if you’re going to hit your abrasive budget for the job.
Number four, the nozzle pressure at each nozzle. If you recall the nozzle pressure on each nozzle, that is the number one check to tell the health of your entire blasting system. So if there’s something wrong with the compressor, with the pot, with the hoses, at the nozzle, measure the pressure at the nozzle. That’ll fix that.
Number five, measure the actual hours blasted per nozzle. Have this as a time clock on the blast pot, not an estimate, because if you estimate, you’ll be estimating eight hours of blasting when you’ve only actually done four and a half. A big difference. And you better tell productivity improvements immediately once you start measuring this.
If you do these five daily metrics, put them up on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper on every single jobsite. Have the guys’ names listed out and put their metrics every single day. I guarantee your productivity will go through the roof. Your profitability will increase and you’ll be loving us.
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