John Allin, president of Allin Companies, Erie, Pennsylvania, shrugs his shoulders when asked how his maintenance division is doing. "Last year, I would have told you not so well," he relates. After suffering through what the owner considered to be several sub par seasons on the maintenance side, Allin Companies wiped the slate clean and this year started over again, with new people and a new attitude. The results have been encouraging. Profits are up and employee attitude is better all around.
The maintenance malaise has been a mystery to Allin, a 15-year landscaping veteran. His business is one of the premier snow plowing companies in the state, if not in the country. It also has a reputation as a premier construction firm. Last year it grossed better than $1 million in installation projects alone. Snow removal, coming in at $600,000 and maintenance at $400,000, comprised the remainder of the revenue.
"Maintenance is supposed to be easy," relates Allin. "That side of the business should really run itself We struggled for a number of reasons. As all firms can tell you, good people are hard to find. We also started out with the wrong equipment, equipment that was continually breaking down and costing us money. To make matters worse, we weren't getting enough money for some of the properties we were doing."
But Allin emphasizes people, or more specifically not having the right people in the right place, was causing most of his maintenance grief. So last winter, he and wife Peggy, company director of operations, "bit the bullet" and literally laid off the entire maintenance staff. Starting anew this spring, they brought in a consultant who helped train new employees in maintenance procedures.
The new staff and training has paid off, especially in one key area, empowerment. "We have given crew foremen more responsibility," tells Allin. "They are responsible for all routine maintenance, including sharpening blades, and for minor repairs and maintenance like changing belts, etc."
Before this move, one of Allin's in-house mechanics would change and sharpen the blades, perform the routine maintenance and fix whatever ailed the mowers. By giving foremen "ownership" of the equipment on their trailers, Allin says mechanic work orders have been reduced by 60 percent and overall equipment maintenance costs have been reduced by two-thirds already this year.
"Don't ask me to explain it," he adds. "But when the foremen change the blades (mechanics still sharpen them), they tell me the machine cuts better."
Allin will tell you the move to give employees more responsibility has changed their perception of the job they're doing, and perception is reality.
That one move alone has helped get the maintenance division back on track. But it has been supplemented by other moves, including a reevaluation of properties and an overall price increase of somewhere around 15 percent. The unprofitable accounts have since either been pared away or made profitable by the price bump.
The owner says he would be remiss if he didn't include his new Walkers as part of the maintenance cure, as well. He retired the last of his "white elephant" riding mowers in 1995 and last year purchased two new Walkers. Within two weeks he had a third one on board.
"The dealer didn't sell me on a Walker," tells Allin. "It was an owner who told me how he enjoyed his Walkers. Since last year, I've sold a few myself the same way."
"Because of the Walkers, we have retired six walk-behind units and we don't have the breakdown and expenses we had with the other riders."
Two of the Walker mowers are on one of three mobile maintenance crews; the other is on an on-site property.
"We will have another three or four Walkers in the near future," Allin adds. "There is no contest between a Walker and having a walk-behind mower. And the price differential isn't that great between a hydrostatic drive walk-behind and a Walker."
Growth Curve
Allin started plowing snow in 1978 and started his landscape maintenance business four years later. He looks forward to continued growth in all three divisions, in snow removal where Erie gets an astounding snowfall of anywhere from 100 to 300 inches a year, in landscape construction and now in maintenance.
On the maintenance side, the company has recently swung over to doing more mid-size commercial properties, e.g., condominium associations. Currently, it does seven such properties and more are being built in the Erie area every day, says Allin.
Allin Companies condominium customers receive a newsletter in the spring and the fall that alerts them to, among other things, the details of the association's contract with the contractor. Keeping residents informed cuts down on both calls and complaints, Allin adds, noting that residents all have a different view of what a contractor should do on their property. He explains, "In the winter we may have a contract to remove snow from the steps only and not the sidewalk leading up to their steps. If residents don't know that and don't understand what they are responsible for, they will complain about our service or anybody's service for that matter."
Communication pieces such as the condominium newsletters help put out fires before there is smoke and have become a fundamental piece of the company's growth strategy. So, too, have the computers and software that help produce the newsletters in-house, track profit and loss, and overall keep the company moving forward. Allin sees another use for computer technology in the near future.
''I was recently introduced to a digital camera that would allow us to take a picture of a property and send it over the Internet. This technology would conceivably allow us to manage a property several hundred miles from our location here in Erie. All we would have to do is hire and equip an on-site manager and monitor the property over the Net.
"With the new technologies available today, if you can manage a property six blocks away, you should be able to do the same 600 miles away."
Of course, the move would require the right kind of property. It would also entail, as Allin emphasizes, making sure you have the right formula already in place for performing high quality maintenance at a profitable level.
The new year has given Allin confidence that maintenance is on the right track once again, to the extent it can be managed from a distance. As he tells it, there are three legs to a profitable maintenance stool. One leg is having the right equipment to get the job done quickly and efficiently. One is making sure jobs are priced at a profitable level. And one is having the right people in place with a feeling of ownership in the job they're doing. Only then will maintenance grow and only then can a company consider growth alternatives made available by new technology.
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