Efficiency is everything in the landscaping industry. An organized trailer and shop can significantly reduce downtime and maximize productivity, says Tanner Mascarenas Milwaukee Tool product manager of hand tools.
“Time spent searching for tools is time lost that could be spent completing jobs,” says Mascarenas. “Maintaining an organized trailer is vital for effective inventory management.”
Mascarenas, Jordan Howard, marketing officer at trailerracks.com by Green Touch Industries, and Tom Trzepacz, vice president of sales and customer relations for Performance Advantage Co., discuss the best ways landscape pros can better their organizational strategies and enhance efficiencies.
Why do it
Keeping an organized shop and trailer can ensure the safety and security of tools and equipment as well as the personnel using them, Trzepacz says.
“With the tools and equipment securely mounted, it’s going to preserve the longevity of the tools and not damage equipment, and the landscape professionals using them are not going to get injured when they’re opening the trailer or grabbing a tool and having equipment falling on them,” Trzepacz says.
Mascarenas adds that as battery-powered outdoor power equipment continues to gain popularity, organization becomes even more crucial in order to manage power.
“Having easily accessible and organized batteries and chargers ensures that charged batteries are always available, reducing the risk of downtime,” Mascarenas says. “Utilizing a modular storage system for battery storage and power management will prevent any unnecessary downtime.”
In the long term, organized shops and trailers can also help minimize maintenance due to damaged equipment, Howard says.
“A lot of our customers will get the racking systems in the offseason and mount them in a garage for easy storage,” Howard says. “It gets everything off the floor, and it also decreases damage, or anything that could happen with it, like getting kicked on the floor or rolling around.”
Presentation and professionalism also result from having a clean trailer.
“If you come up to a job and your trailer is not organized, that’s like your rolling business card or billboard,” Howard says. “Keeping it organized helps with great presentation.”
Strategies
When deciding on how to organize a space, Mascarenas says safety should be a top priority.
“This can significantly reduce dangers such as tripping, exposed blades and falling materials,” Mascarenas says.
In the name of safety, Trzepacz says for mounting brackets, landscape pros should ensure they're placed in a secure location that will bear the weight of whatever is placed on it.
From there, Howard recommends landscapers take stock of what kind and how much equipment they have and whether they need a high-security system that locks if they’re in a higher-crime area. They should also determine an organizational system, whether it’s labeling by color or number or organizing by brand or piece of equipment.
Mascarenas recommends identifying which tools and materials are used most frequently in day-to-day operations.
“Organizing your storage system around these key items makes them easily accessible and identifiable for quick access and clean up,” Mascarenas says.
Finally, landscape pros should do their best to maximize the space available.
“We get a lot of calls with landscape professionals not knowing where they want to mount their tools,” Trzepacz says. “It’s up to the individual person on how often they’re going to use something, but try to figure out the layout before mounting, using some kind of tape, so you can get a better understanding of how to organize your tools. It’s really important to have a nice, clean layout and have everything in front of you before you get going.”
