VIP – Measure success

When you first began working on a golf course, what was your job?  Did you clean golf carts?  Work at the driving range?  How about caddying for the Judge Smails of the world?  Or, did you first begin to love the job by mowing greens every morning, all summer long?  It was the simplest of tasks that could have been assigned to you during those hot summer days that made you fall in love with our business.  Business.  Hmmm.  At that time, you probably did not see golf as a business.  Between the mowing, pulling weeds, and watering flowers little did most of us think that golf is BIG business.  It is a $75 billion a year industry to be exact and what happens on the golf course maintenance crew is a direct derivative of how a club performs. 

At the Golf Industry Show back in February, attendees got a good sense that we all play a part in the golf industry.  This game and industry is bigger than all of us.  However, being apart of this great game links many people together: The Family of Golf. 

Now, let’s get back to the key word, BUSINESS. 

A practice that has been known to many industries but not golf is Statistical Process Control (SPC).  In reading and learning about SPC, it is the application of statistical methods to the monitoring and control of a process to ensure that it operates at its full potential to produce a product.   For example, if you owned a restaurant, there is a certain time that you have from the time an order comes in to when a meal is plated and served.  If you do not meet that time frame, one must evaluate their methods in which to meet the necessary time.  Given recent light of Toyota’s and some of the other automakers maladies, I will not use the auto industry as a good reference.  But, auto manufactures do have control measures in place. 

The idea of SPC came from an American named William Edwards Deming, Ph.D. Dr. Deming was aiding in the reconstruction of Japan following the bombing and surrender after WWII.  Dr. Deming’s efforts were to assist General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, to form a census for Japan in the late 1940’s.  While there, Dr. Deming preached to businessman about SPC in that the defects in manufactured items should be inspected out before it was sold, not recalled after it reached the consumer.  The Japanese absorbed this information quite well and led the way in the manufacturing markets of electronics and autos for almost a half century. Unfortunately, American business at home did not listen to Dr. Deming and by the late 1970’s U.S. businesses found themselves scratching their heads about why they were losing to the Japanese. 

In guessing that most courses do not have statistical methods in tracking their staffs’ efforts, unbeknownst to many, what Superintendents do everyday is quality control.   For example, when you send out your greens mowers to mow greens, you have a pretty good idea how long it should take them to complete the job thoroughly.  If the mowers come in too early, you might ask, what was missed?  Or, if they come in later than expected, you’ll ask why did it take so long?  This folks is a means of quality control. 

A formal measure of quality control has been in place at the Hinsdale Golf Club since 2005. In 2003, there had been discussions about performing a complete bunker renovation.  After many committee discussions, the project morphed into what would become a complete regrassing of the greens and newly built bunkers and tee complexes. The renovation project would close the Hinsdale golf course for the better part of nine months along with a price tag of over $1.5 million.  In over 100 years, this course had never seen a project of this magnitude.  So, in order to ensure the perpetuity of the members’ investment, the Visual Improvement Program (VIP) was born.

Superintendent Bob Maibusch, CGCS, MG, former assistant – Chad Kempf (now with EPIC Creative), and the grounds chairman at that time, put together a comprehensive program that would standardize, rate, and communicate daily golf course tasks. They knew maintenance expectations would be exceptionally high after the renovation project, but there were no plans to increase the maintenance budget to account for the additional maintenance activities or the heightened expectations and the VIP would address that issue. 

The first task in putting together a VIP plan was to create standards for 12 areas of maintenance. The management team of Maibusch, Kempf, and Manuel Gonzalez, head mechanic, worked together to develop written standards for each of the following 12 areas:

• Greens Mowing
• Tee and Collar Mowing
• Fairway Mowing
• Bunker Raking
• Cup and Tee Changing
• Banks and Surrounds Mowing
• Equipment Care
• Maintenance Facility Care
• Lakes and Ponds
• Landscaping
• Cart and Foot Paths
• Practice Facility

These standards would outline in a written document the minimum expectations required to complete each task. In an effort to get everyone on board with the VIP, the team garnered input from the crew to help develop the standards – what better source of information than the people who do the task everyday and may think of things you do not. Additionally, because our crew is mainly Hispanic, the standards were translated into Spanish. The written standards eliminated any misinterpretation or confusion as to the minimum expectations upon completion of the task and could also be used as a training tool for new employees.

Next, to make this program work, we needed a way in which to measure our level of success or failure.  In order to do this, we used the standards to create a list of criteria. This list was used as a basis to measure on a scale of 1-10 how well each task was completed. Each member of the management team and some members from the grounds committee completed these ratings each week. The ratings were then complied into a spreadsheet that tallied weekly averages.  From these averages bar charts were created to show the level of maintenance accomplished for the 12 maintenance areas each week. The ratings are the most important part of the program because they provide a measurement of how we are doing and specifically if there is a particular item within a task that is not meeting expectations. These ratings also allow us to create a visual representation of our progress through the bar charts where you can quickly see the increase or decrease in maintenance quality. Our goal the first year was to have continual improvement throughout the summer. 

With these tools in place, we brought the crew together to discuss VIP, how we planned to use it to increase our maintenance level, and to talk about our goals. Because this is a “Visual” Improvement Process, we set up glass encased poster boards on the wall where everyone on the crew could “visually” monitor the level of our progress, as well as anyone who came in the maintenance facility.

Additionally, we added pictures to the poster boards.  Using a digital camera, pictures were taken of work completed correctly as well as incorrectly to re-emphasis our expectations.  These pictures created a simple, easy, and effective way of communicating to the crew what things needed correcting as well as things we did correctly. Also, simple phrases or graphics were added to clarify what the photo was showing. An effort to post new pictures weekly helped to keep the crew interested in our progress and sometimes gave crew members bragging rights or encouragement not to slack off. 

The program took a bit of training and adjusting on the part of the management team as well as the crew and members, but the results have been very positive.  The membership has noticed a difference in the level of maintenance we have been able to achieve.  This has also become an invaluable tool for the management staff for a number of reasons.  First of all, it is an effective yet simple way to communicate to our staff.  They understand our expectations and they can “visually” see if they have been able to maintain or exceed that level.  Next it helps us to understand the areas that we need to focus more of our attention.  If we seem to struggle with a particular task rating, it is easy to identify what we need to do to bring that rating up to the next level.  Finally, it is a tool that can be used by the board of directors to identify areas that they want to improve on and what it would take to get there.

The renovation at Hinsdale Golf Club was a large undertaking but putting the VIP in place beforehand was truly a success because once golfers got back on the course we knew expectations would be at their highest.  This program allowed us to increase our maintenance standards more efficiently, effectively, and consistently without increasing the budget. Additionally, it has been an important tool for management to keep the level of maintenance high or to identify where additional efforts are needed. Having a way to measure our maintenance standards improved our quality and the membership noticed.

Regardless of how you began in this BUSINESS, it somehow became a passion.  With time and experience, you understand beyond the physical aspect to golf course work.  You have to know budgets, personnel management, employment regulations, etc.  The Visual Improvement Program may be another tool Superintendents can use to create efficiencies and cost savings for their club.  Golf is a business and we are all apart of it.  The game’s perpetuity is in our hands. 

John Ekstrom is an assistant superintendent at Hinsdale Golf Club.