Removal times.

[Treefrog]

I am trying to independantly asess my crews performance.Hopefully with the experience in the room, a median can be found so I have some type of reference point, or datum to draw comparisons.Recently we removed a White Birch hanging over a shed.The main stem was 18"dbh, and the height of the tree aproximately 50'.This tree took us 45 minutes to remove from the start of the saw, to the last rakings dumped into the chip truck.The tools used were a 55'- 2 man walk-through bucket aerial device, a Sthil 026, and 066 saw, and a Morbark 290 chipper.The crew consisted of two men in the bucket, and one ground man, after the tree was brushed out, the 2nd man in the bucket assisted the ground man.Is this a typical time for the manpower, and the tools used for the size of the tree?Any comments would be appriciated.

 

[klimbinfool]

The way I look at it is, if it took you three hours to do it with a two men,and had to climb it, vrs. 45 min what was more profitable? Trees can be sometimes decieving, especially removals.I always felt that putting more man power on a job and knocking it out was much more profitable than not having enough.This will allow you to knock out two or three smaller jobs in a day vrs. speading your crew thin and taking up more man hours.However, there is a fine line and you have to be the judge of your crews abilities.

Greg

 

[treeclimber165]

Expecting someone to give an answer for this question is about like a customer asking for a price without seeing the tree.
Determine your necessary dollars per man hour, bid jobs accordingly, and if you are consistently meeting or beating your man hour rate, then you are making money. There have been several good articles on business and money management in TCI magazine over the years.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

The time sounds reasonable to me.

If you want to come up with a production value you would need to collect a lot of data from many jobs. The catch is to come up with coeffecients that equalize the many variables.

Here are some data points that you would need to collect:

DBH
Height
Crown architecture-elm/white pine would be much different
Size of landing zone
Access for moving debris to street
Obstacles

You could group data into several catagories to come up with better data. the boulevard flopper is going to scew your data compared to the backyard tree in the middle of the garden.

Personally, I think that the money spent training and inspiring your crew to work effeciently would be a better first investment. After your production methods are smooth you could then look at the actual production volume/speed.

Tom

 

[MrPez]

That's an interesting point Tom - we have recently drawn the same conclusion. We have identified that the squad leader is the key to a quality, safe and efficient service. Therefore we have devised a one day a month training programme for squad leaders over 10 months. Each day is a different topic with consolidation days to plot the progress. The best climber isn't always the best man manager! Some of our squad leaders don't even climb. We aim to teach them time management skills, updates on best practice, communication skills and client disputes etc.

 

[greenguy]

you should have made around 210 dollars for that job It all depends on lador cost equipment cost and wood disposal plus materials. that will give you an idea of your hourly production figures.

 

[Mark Chisholm]

Treefrog, I like your mindset here and the idea behind it, but I am a bit confused about one thing- Why were 2 out of three men on the crew in the bucket and how was he helping the ground guy?

I know that situations wikll arise that break the standard guidelines. I am just wondering what and why things caused you to put two men in the air for this job?

 

[Treefrog]

Mark, the reason for two guys in the bucket, was that the material had to be dropped away from the shed, and the drop zone was a bit tight.Thanks guys for your input.

 

[Mark Chisholm]

Gotcha!