EQUIPMENT: Encouraging operator responsibility

It’s a poor carpenter that blames his tools." According to Ray Joyce, turf equipment manager at Rosedale Golf Club in Toronto, this adage applies to golf equipment care and maintenance, too.

"That old chestnut of advice still applies today," he says. "But add in the words ‘properly maintained’ to describe the machinery condition and staff attitude."

Situated in north Toronto, Rosedale is one of the most exclusive private clubs in Canada; founded in 1893, it’s also one of the oldest. At Rosedale since 2000, Joyce’s maintenance staff is well-trained and well-versed with operating procedures of the machinery, which ensures they run properly.

"I find operators are apologetic when a machine fails in job completion and want to know what they can do to aid in its return to service," he says. "Machinery failures occur, and those combined with an extensive day-to-day preventive maintenance program and scheduled off-season overhauls, are the reason for maintaining an in-house service department."

The culture instilled by Joyce at Rosedale is one of ownership where employees take pride in the equipment and care for the machines as if they were their own. While some turf equipment managers and superintendents struggle with crews who are careless, Joyce has never experienced this in his 25-plus years maintaining golf course equipment.

He says at previous clubs, the primary reason for the decline of equipment performance and reliability was directly linked to the size of the repair budget for purchasing replacement parts and the lack of capital funding for equipment replacement at timely intervals.

"Imagine a situation where you follow the manufacturer’s recommended schedule of maintenance for equipment only to find by the first of September you have no budget remaining to complete the season’s maintenance or break-down requirements," he explains. "A couple of years in that situation and you can quickly lose both reliability and dependability.

"This still occurs at many courses and the equipment suffers, the course will show the ill effects and the staff will not be able to perform tasks as they are asked to without the machinery operating at its best."

A golf course’s fleet of equipment is one of its largest assets and also its most costly. With shrinking budgets due to the recession, caring for equipment is more important than ever to keep it up and running and lasting longer, since repairs are costly.

What other best practices are superintendents and turf equipment managers using to keep their assets in tip-top shape? For many, a day without a breakdown of one of their pieces of equipment is rare; keeping equipment in good shape begins with training and then requires ongoing record keeping.

Bill Hughes, equipment manager at The Loon Golf Course in Gaylord, Mich., and a committee member of the International Golf Course Equipment Managers Association, says the first person in any viable preventive maintenance program is the operator.

"Until they do their part in maintaining the equipment, neither the golf course superintendent nor the equipment manager will be able to ensure the preventive maintenance program is successful," he comments. "Today’s successful equipment manager must also be diligent in his selection of vendors to ensure his employer is getting the biggest bang for their buck."

One of the most important items in any successful program is to track scheduled preventive maintenance services. There are many ways to do this; Hughes uses John Gehman’s Turf Equipment Management software (See sidebar "Equipment tracking," on page 56).

"With so many great vendors vying for our attention, a computer and Internet access in the shop is something that should be given a high priority," Hughes says.

Warren Wybenga, turf equipment manager, Donalda Club in Toronto, agrees keeping records is critical to maintaining equipment. He recently implemented a program where all employees fill out a daily inspection sheet for each machine at the beginning of each shift.

"That’s a fairly new program and it still has a few bugs in it, but it’s another way to help track issues," he says. "It forces the operators to do a circle check in the morning and look at basic functional items on the machines from both a safety and performance standpoint."

Dennis Kaminski, superintendent at Seven Oaks Country Club in Beaver, Pa., also uses log sheets; he says this strategy helps make sure little problems don’t become big issues.

"At first I had my staff fill these out at the end of the day only if they had any problems, but nobody was filling them out," he says. "The premise was to write down what piece of equipment you had, if there was a problem, describe where it occurred and sign off on it. What we started doing was making sure people filled it out no matter what.

"I have about a hundred of them sitting by the time clock," he continues. "If there were no problems you put ‘None.’ We saw a lot more little things that needed repair whether it was a tire or a light that came on. The goal is to get the little stuff fixed right away. I look at them and then give them to the mechanic so he can still deal with those issues. That has helped a lot."

Kaminski adds that good record keeping on the part of the mechanic is crucial to prolonging the life of your fleet of equipment.

"We have a piece of paper for each piece of equipment to keep track of what repairs were done and when," he says.

Ownership begins with solid communication. "At the morning meeting I tell everybody how much repairs are," Kaminski says. "Say the transmission went down, I let people know it was $6,500 to replace it, then tell them to try to shift the machine properly.

"I have a big white board in the main shop and during morning meetings I write down tips like make sure you tuck all the lawn mower handles back, not off to the side where they can hit a tree," he says. "We write that down on the board that way if someone wasn’t there that day they can read the board and not say ‘I wasn’t here that day.’"

With shrinking budgets, it’s important to see problems early and address them before they become a major issue. "It’s important in any economic time, but even more so in tighter times when budgets are being clawed back and purchasing is being scrutinized," Wybenga says. "I always try to come in on budget. It also allows me to get in and get close to each piece of machinery because I could go a week without seeing a piece or laying my hands on it. I have to rely on the operators to tell me if something is wrong. I can’t see everything and I can’t be everywhere.

"I rely on them to be my eyes and ears. Once in a while I take a drive out on the course and see how things are cutting … sit and watch and look at machines as they are being operated. I’m looking and listening for different things than the superintendent. The operators sometimes look at us funny and wonder why they are being watched, but I’m not often watching what they are doing, I’m looking more at the machines."

Kaminski offers one final piece of advice: "I often have a few guys helping the mechanic on rainy days, so they see the labor involved in fixing things. They can sharpen blades, change the oil and tires on the machine – things like that help him out and it gives them a bit more ownership." GCI