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Standardizing Landscaping Spray Equipment Can Improve Profitability

Standardizing Landscaping Spray Equipment Can Improve Profitability

Posted by Andrew Greess on Jul 2, 2021

Equipment standardization. These are two words you are going to want to learn about and understand if you are a landscape company that would like to increase your profitability.

By standardizing the landscaping spray equipment you and your employees use, you can greatly reduce downtime and other issues associated with repairs and maintenance of your equipment.

Southwest Airlines is a perfect example of this concept. They fly only one type of aircraft and as a result, they have a very streamlined process. They have a limited number of parts that they need. Training is done on one aircraft so every pilot and flight attendant knows the operating procedures of every plane. Every maintenance person knows how to fix everything. It is extremely efficient. And Southwest Airlines makes money every year.

This model can work for a weed and landscape businesses as well. Take a moment to think about what that would mean for your landscape business?

Equipment standardization would save time and money as well as make your business more efficient.

For a landscape business you can standardize for power sprayers so you have fewer problems. This can also be done for trimmers, mowers or anything. Think about your toolboxes and storage. If you could standardize your toolboxes, if someone is sick and another person takes over the route, they know where everything is.

So how do you proceed with weed and landscape spray equipment standardization? Start with standards for your equipment. While it is easier to standardize if you're starting new but you don’t need to toss everything and start all over. You can start replacing things with your standards as you need to.

As an example you can standardize your power sprayer filters. We know that filters cause many problems so standardizing filters will save you time, money and downtime. There are lots of other things you can standardize to save yourself and your tech lots of time and hassle.

There is no question it will save you money. When you need landscape backpacks or power sprayers, parts or kits, find it at Qspray.com.

Hello this is Andrew Greess from Qspray.com, your landscape equipment expert.

Today we're going to talk about equipment standardization and we're going to use the analogy of Southwest Airlines. They are equipment standardization experts and Southwest always makes money when other airlines are losing money in a down market.

Southwest always makes money and one of the reasons is because they've standardized their equipment. All their planes are 737s and think about what this means. When they need a backup plane, they're all 737s. They just bring another one in.

If they have to switch gates they just move the plane to another gate and I remember once being at the airport and a flight was delayed because the plane was too big to fit at the gate that was available. That never happens with Southwest Airlines.

Think about maintenance, the maintenance staff. They have so many fewer parts for maintenance because all their planes are the same. All the repairs are the same - you need to replace a widget? It's always the same widget. It's always the same. Always goes in the same place.

Operating procedures - Every flight attendant, even if their first time on this plane they know where the diet coke is. They know where the emergency equipment is. Training is so much easier because everyone gets trained on the same equipment.

And responding to problems is so much easier because everything's the same.

And think about what that would mean for your landscape business?

This equipment standardization saves time. It saves money. It means more efficiency. And it certainly means better service because you can respond to problems faster and much easier.

So equipment standardization will absolutely work for your landscape equipment as well. And so what are we talking about for equipment standardization? I’m an expert in spray equipment so that's mainly what I want to talk about.

And certainly for power sprayers. If you standardize your power sprayers, you will have so many fewer problems. And you know that does imply some standardization of your vehicles as well but you could also standardize backpacks.

I remember once being called to this large national landscaping firm and they said can you come over and look at our equipment and they open this door into this equipment storage room and they had 30 backpacks and most of them were different and they were you know just a mess. And basically I said you know what, this is just junk. There's nothing we can do here. It's easier just to start over because you'll spend more money trying to fix this and scavenge parts than it would be to just do it right.

What other landscape equipment do you use? Trimmers or chainsaws or mowers? The more you can standardize the fewer problems you have. And toolboxes and storage. If you could standardize where everything is on your toolboxes then when you have someone out sick and Joe has to take over that route, they know Joe knows where everything is. It saves time and you don't end up with a mess.

So how do you proceed with equipment standardization?

First you want to start with standards. Come up with standards for your equipment.

Number 2, obviously existing versus new equipment is critical. It's much easier to standardize if

you're starting with new. And I’m not suggesting you throw anything out and start all over,

but you can replace and repair it your existing equipment to the new standard as you as you need to. And start small.

So for example with power sprayers, standardize your filters and we we think that the filters are the cause of many problems on power sprayers so if you're standardizing your filters that'll save you time and money and downtime.

Quick disconnects on the end of your hoses will mean that you can standardize the guns and if one gun breaks, you can bring another one in. It just much less downtime.

Common sense is required. You know not everything can be standardized but do what you can. But if you do standardize your landscape equipment, you'll reduce downtime, you'll reduce your repair expense, you'll reduce your pissed off customers, you'll reduce your problems and headaches.

No question it will save you money. So when you need landscape backpacks or power sprayers parts and kits please visit Qspray.com thanks for watching.