Kevin’s News

Tricky one this – Kevin’s post is a general broadcast to the trade, but his point is (I would suggest) aimed at our members working for Work Providers by and large. I haven’t responded so far as I don’t do this kind of work, being independent and specialising in property maintenance work – students – I love them.

As things stand up here in Leeds, I’m working for £35 an hour plus bits, with a lot of “pre-priced” jobs (more profitable – don’t tell anyone). To be honest, I’m a bit expensive, but, for my market, my customers know that I’ll get in and do the job quickly – which is what they want.

I’m planning to bump the rate to £40 in the new year, which will bring the usual screams of outrage from a few, who’ll return in a couple of months when other peoples service lets them down or they figure that they’re getting ripped off.

Maybe this doesn’t directly help the thread along, BUT I do this based on a 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}+ 1st hit rate, which IS profitable – lots of completions every day.

The mercenary bit is that none of this work is U/G. So, by the time it’s coming along, I’ve picked up the top 10 parts for the common machines and they’re in the van and waiting.

Now, where this can be relevant in general is that all manufacturers know perfectly well what their top (say) 100 fastest moving parts are and SHOULD be ensuring that their engineers (or agents) are carrying them. It was certainly the way we used to work at Comet (I said USED to) and Creda used a similar arrangement.

If I can figure out the basics of this as an (now) independant, there is no excuse for the WPs not to be able to do the same thing!

Years ago I had to go to a Creda toploader (Domar IIRC) and a small cardboard box appeared with 12 parts in it. Sure enough, the lock and knob cam were what were required, job done, box sent back with usage sheet. The point is that some one was analysing usage and identifying failure and preparing for it. This no longer appears to be the case and everyone is second guessing or accepting that first call is an investigation and hoping it’s a blockage!

Anyway, I survive these days on a good 1st hit. How you’re supposed to manage on an investigate/order/return basis is beyond me. Obviously a higher rate will compensate, but better availibility would be so much better!

Kevin’s put a lot of thought and effort into this and deserves a response. These are my thouhgts, let’s have yours!

Chris the Penguin.