We’ve been looking into "something" that I think could be very effective at maximimizing our efficiencie’s and minimizing the amount of record keeping of our Horticultural tech’s.

Suppose you could:

1) Provide your Tech with a device that would fit on their key-ring along with their car keys.

2) They would scan in at the beginning of each service call and out at the end.

3) You would seamlessly download the data from the device into MS Excel at your convenience, Your Tech’s would have no timekeeping paperwork and the data could be manipulated in Excel.

4) The initial cost of the software would be about $275.00 for multiple devices, plus a thermal printer (for barcode printing) at about $400.00 plus about $125.00 per device.

We’re very close to making this a reality for our Tech’s and may be able to bring the price down if others are interested.

Interseted...or not interested?

Sounds like you are reinventing the wheel.

http://www.jobclock.com/

Jobclock appears to be designed for employees clocking in and out at one jobsite (i.e., construction sites), where it would be relatively simple for management to collect the time punch data each payweek. For route work (such as what we interiorscapers do), you would need a Jobclock device at each account in addition to the employees’ "punch" devices. Plus, who’s going to go to each site to download the data from each jobsite’s "clock" device each week? A service supervisor? Or a clerk who just does that all day? Sounds like a waste of personnel on one end to save a few bucks on the other. Also, it’s probably too expensive for most interiorscape companies to afford all the hardware/software as well as the manpower to collect the data at the readers...if you have 75 accounts, you would need 75 Jobclock scanners plus the tech devices. Ouch!

Steve, does your system require only a device for each tech? Or is it basically the same idea as the Jobclock? Sounds interesting, but how does the system actually work?

Clem

"Sounds like you are reinventing the wheel"

Not really Dan. Do you have firsthand knowledge of Job Clock, or did you google up the info?

Based upon the info on their website, I’m guessing that this would be a much more costly and complicated application than the one we’re looking into.

With Job Clock, it appears that the devices have to be individually programmed (by them) and then one has to be purchased for each jobsite (at what cost??). Further, the data collection process is complicated in that *someone* must visit each jobsite to retrieve the stored data with a scanner. Don’t think so!

With our application, the only thing placed on a jobsite is a barcode label (CHEAP) and each Tech is provided with the key ring scanner (About $125 ea). Data collection is a snap too as it can be downloaded into your computer and imported into Excel for maniputalion. No need to have someone running around to each jobsite to collect data.

Today, I’ll be receiving additional info. regarding whether or not the thermal printer is really necessary. Hopefully NOT! That being the case, the labels could be printed on any printer and the $400 printer cost would be eliminated. Software price could come down too with sufficient quantities.

So far, the only downside that I’m seeing is that one’s Tech’s would need to return/present their scanners to the office at specified intervals (weekly/monthy) for data retrieval. Not an issue if your tech’s stop by the office once in a while.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Steve

Clem, I think I answered your questions in my post above :) I should have more info later today or tomorrow.

Will be interesting to see if there’s aditional interest.

Steve

OK...Here’s some additional info.

The thermal printer is not necessary, but a laser printer (which most of us already own) is. Thermal printer is only necessary if your barcode will be exposed to weather.

The cost of the software could be dropped to about $150.00 and the key ring scanners to about $110 ea. We’d need to order at least 25 copies of the software (that’s only 25 companies people) and at least 50 of the scanners for this pricing.

I’m receiving a sample scanner and software next week to test this out.

Anyone else interested? Feel free to email me if you don’t want to post your interest here.

I know I’m unique (smile) but surely I can’t be the only one interested in this technology!

Steve

Steve,

What about getting additional keychain scanners later? Will that be a problem ?

Sound great Steve. I would think the bar code could be put inconcpicuously somehwere in the janitor closet of most places or hidden on the underside of a sink where the Tech gets water, right ?

Debbie

Getting the scanners (or some updated variation of them) shouldn’t be an issue in the future Debbie.

I’m thinking that the barcode would be placed on the back or inside the top lip of the decorative container of the plant that’s closest to the entrance/exit point of each account.

Another cool idea is that on very large accounts, additional barcodes could be assigned designating for example a specific floor or atrium area etc.

Steve,

Great idea....I think this subj. is where I started on this board.

We tried a similar process. We had some likes and dislikes of the system. We went back to the call in and out...Works in any weather using the one thing that we have the most success with people not losing (cell Phone).


I wish you the best of luck.

I actually looked into a system like this several years ago but dismissed it as to expensive but technology and prices change quickly. The devices I looked into used a bar code reader that the tech carried and then downloaded the info onto the computer at the end of the week. The jobclock works by locking a key fob onto a location on the jobsite and the tech carries the actual clock with them. (just the opposite of the way the web says to use it) What you are looking for is the basic system that security gaurds use to prove that they have done their rounds. If I remember right I looked at the Detex System

We only have six hort service reps, but I’m game for the game. Systems are only as good as the people using them but, executed properly, I can definitely see the value of the information provided by using it. Keep me in the loop of persons of interest.

My company is not all that large either , 7 service technicians but I see where a
system like this has value. Most specifically for the occassional client who is not
quite sure they have had service, if they don’t happen to ’see’ the technician,
they can have proof that the company was on-site on a certain day and time.
What about operations and installations personnel be eqipped with a scanner as
well? So you could really get a grip on the hard time that is spent at an account.

Honest employees should have no problem with this... and dishonest people,
well who needs ’em?

The scanners can be provided to any of yor team members Matthew. Each scanner will identify the individual associated with it so yes install crews and QC managers can have one too and scan in and out.

Hmmmmmmm. You just made me think of something! I know you use Macs... gonna have to check into whether or not the labeling software is available for the Mac??

NOTE to Jeff etal at Interiorscape: This thread is not intended to be a promotion for any product! Just an investigation into the feasibility/need for something like this. If it all comes together, there will be paid advertising in the Mag. Promise :)

Thanks for providing this FREE forum for our little industry.

I wonder about the potential for "team misuse" of this technology...it’s not exactly retina scanning or thumbprint ID, so what’s to stop team members from scanning each other’s tags to cover for missing team members? I guarantee it will happen at some point. People take a lot of satisfaction in hacking technology, especially when they perceive that the technology is Big Brother trying to keep tabs on them. So you will still need to be a "surprise visitor" on a regular and unpredictable basis to enforce the system...sort of defeats the purpose, no?

I’d rather depend on our techs to be the honest, reliable people we know them to be (otherwise, they’d be history). Plus, if all I’m doing is getting exact service visit times and dates for each account, I already have a simple way to collect that info that our techs have no problem using and submitting, so why gild the lily? Maybe other companies, especially larger ones or ones with employees who aren’t into keeping a logsheet, have bigger issues with that aspect of the bookkeeping. Anyway, I’d rather work to maintain a culture of self-management and empowerment wherever possible...that’s what tends to make small companies good places to work, isn’t it?

Clem

Great idea,

I would be interested.

Rich

Clem this isn’t about not encouraging "self-management" and "empowering" team members!

It’s about simplifying recordkeeping and increasing accuracy and efficiencies of honest employees... across the board.

Most *any* system can be misused if the perpetrator is detemined enough, but I seriously doubt that there’s anyone working at any our companies that would consider the activity of tag swapping/scanning someone else’s accounts while they were out sunning on the beach. Besides, the "scanner-culprit" would have to actually visit the account and sit around for the appropriate amount of time before scanning out and then who would be scanning their accounts?

Of course we have to trust our people. I doubt that ANY of us would hire/retain people that we don’t/couldn’t trust.

This isn’t a trust issue. It’s about making our Tech’s (and their Managers) lives more simple and at the same time increasing their accuracy and our companies’ efficiencies and profitability.

There are more than one way to look at everything and sure, as with any change, there will be dissenter’s initially, but as Matthew so well stated, "Honest employees should have no problem with this..."

If there are any Tech’s in the house, I’d be interested to hear their opinions on this. Would you consider this Big Brother checking up on you, or would you consider it a positive, time saving and routine simplyfying solution?

Answers please. You may of course remain anonymous :)

Steve

PS...glad you like the idea Rich.

OK, the opinion of this tech is that I would find it rather a nuisance since I don’t have to log my hours. I am honest, so I wouldn’t have a major issue with doing it.

I work for a relatively small company (roughly 7 to 8 full-time equivalant techs). We do the empowerment approach Clem talks about, and that is why I like to work there and I would think long and hard about ever switching to another company. We don’t log our hours, although I would if asked to. We have a list of accounts to handle, and it is up to us to get them done, and done well, during our working hours.

I suppose if you have a large number of employees who haven’t proven themselves, or if you need an exact accounting of every minute they spend, the technology you mention would be a good approach. But personally I would find it a bit insulting. How many other professionals have to account for every second of their working day? (Well, lawyers do track billable hours, I suppose...)

WOW!

Sheila. Thanks so much for the response. Somehow, I knew you were gonna reply :) and I appreciate the feedback.

Couple of things I would like to reiterate though!

This is is not about mistrust or not empowering team members.. It’s about maximizing efficiencies, simplifying record-keeping and increasing bottom-line profits. Which are good for all of us that work for quality-minded companies.

Our company is small too, and our Tech’s are on salary, so it doesn’t matter to us if a given route is completed in the allocated time allotment or not, as long as the work is completed in an exemplary manner and the client’s expectations are exceeded.

What matters though is that it’s essential as a business owner/manager to know whether or not an account is indeed profitable, and the only way to know that is to have the appropriate data. To clarify, if you (as a great Tech) are spending 2 hours per service call servicing an account that we (as a great company) are billing out at 1.5 hours per service call, then WE (collectively) are not doing so well!

The only way to monitor this effectively (after a certian company size) is by having systems and policies in place.

As "companies", we all have accounts that are not generating the profits that they should be, and in the cas eo of some accounts we (as companies) are actually PAYING clients to take care of their plants! NOT GOOD!

So...If we could eliminate these "unprofitable" accounts from our equation, we could allocate our resources to accounts that are indeed profitable AND free up time to add new PROFITABLE accounts.

Yes, in some cases, it may be about numbers and mistrust, but in most cases, I’d guess (hope) that it’s about making a better company for each of us to be a part of.

I REALLY appreciate you take on this Sheila. More thoughts appreciated as this develops.

Steve

The "hack" wouldn’t be too difficult for a dishonest employee. If they could make a copy of the bar code from each account then they wouldn’t have to be at that location at that time. They could just scan it at the correct time but be wherever they want. Make sure the bar code labels are permanently affixed and cannot be copied. Or just have a receptionist keep the barcode securely in their desk until it is scanned in their presence (kind of like ’notary’ security).

Better yet, utilize a barcode scanner with GPS built in so that the time corresponds with GPS location. This way the removal or copy of the barcode off location would not be an issue.

Steve, you’re welcome. I’ve been on the board a lot because it’s too darn cold to do much else except work! Brrrr.

I understand that this is pretty much the only way to analyze profitability of each account (I was an economics major, after all).

It amazed me how easily people can come up with ways to hack a system! I guess my mind is just not that devious. Even if they did successfully hack the system, though, it seems to me that the sorry state of the plants would expose them within a matter of weeks.

My boss handles all the sales/pricing/financial details. I’m sure he has a handle on the profitability of our accounts or he wouldn’t have been in business for 30 years. However, I doubt he has the level of detail that you do. We run a low tech, low overhead shop. Not as sophisticated, but probably gives us a slight edge in pricing.

Good luck with your system anyway, and I’ll be interested to see how it works out.

I know this will probably come across as not trusting the techs, but here goes.

Our techs turn in signed maintenance sheets for each account, which includes the travel time as a separate line item. Yes, we pay them for the travel time. Many of our accounts are rural. The purpose of the maintenance sheet is many. One of the primary ones is to let the contact person know when our tech was there. We train our techs to be inobtrusive, which often means going to tough-to-access offices over lunchtime. Ever since we started this program many years ago, the client phone calls denying that our tech was there have virtually stopped.

The other curious issue that reared its ugly head was that periodically we discovered a tech who had rearranged an efficient run to suit their personal desires (such as wanting to start very early in the morning). Since some accounts are not accessible at 5:00 a.m., we discovered that they were maintaining one account, then skipping the neighboring account, running another 45 minutes in the other direction, then backtracking to the missed account. Not only were we paying for extra labor, but the mileage as well. It was not intended maliciously by the tech. They just did not think the repercussions through. The maintenance sheets helped us uncover the problem.

Your bar-code method could tie in with that verification method, but I’m not sure how the travel issue would work. We like the personal touch of the weekly maintenance sheet, from a public relationship standpoint. No doubt that it would be more efficient, record-wise. I’ll be curious to see the end product of your work.

Julie

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting point Anon!

I wouldn’t have thought of that, but then I don’t tend to think like a "hack"... most of us don’t really.

Again, this isn’t about dishonesty and I don’t imagine there are many hackers out there in many of our companies, but yes, the barcode labels could be permanently affixed to the *whatever* and they could not be duplicated without the correct coding data. They could be photocopied, but I don’t really see how the hacker would accomplish that feat!

Good point you raise however.

Gives us something else to think about. Seriously though, I doubt that hacking is going to be a big issue.

Thanks. Steve

Which leads us to the inevitable 800-lb. gorilla in the room...what happens if the system "goes down" without you knowing it until the data is downloaded and suddenly isn’t there? Is there some redundancy or backup built into the scanners?

I actually like the idea of the keyring scanning setup. I just think it’s too prone to snafus...lost keyring tags, system crashes, lost/damaged barcode labels, etc. Murphy’s Law must be respected and planned around.

Clem

We’ve had similar situations with Tech’s re-routing themselves Julie without considering the costs associated with doing so. Not maliciously of course, they just didn’t think it though as a business owner as you mentioned.

We also currently use a paper service report (which is turned in weekly) and our Techs adhere to a very strict route schedule.

As far as tracking travel time with the scanners, I hadn’t gotten that far into this as we haven’t received our test unit yet but two thoughts pop to mind.

1) The time between scanning out of one account and into the next could be broken out as travel...

2) A barcode called "travel" could be placed in the vehicle and scanned at the beginning and end of each travel segment.

Method two would require more clicking of couse, and may not be appreciably more accurate.

Another good point raised. This is good :)

Clem, I’m sure there may be a small degree of equipment failure, but the degree is most probably minimal. C’mon, cars break down from time to time, but we still drive :)

As for losing the scanner, not much of an issue. If the scanner gets lost, so have the Tech’s car keys! Not gonna happen :)

I’ll send you a link so you can see what the scanner looks like and reference its size.

Steve

Clem...can you email me. I seem to not have your correct email address.

steve@fosterplants.com

I’ve got his email Steve !!!!!!! It’s ________

GOTCHA Clem !!!!!! HAHAHA

Have a nice three day weekend everyone.

Steve I am interested in the system.

Didn’t Charlie at Tropex have some type of system like this. I remember reading about it several years ago, and they were thinking of marketing it to the indutry. They developed it from scratch themselves.
Rick

Yes, you’re correct Rick.

Charlie at Tropex developed a system that’s MUCH more sophisticated than this one, using PDA’s to scan the data in and out.

Can’t recall the name now (Greenscan perhaps??) but I think it’s still available and as I recall it has all kinds of data mining/manipulating capabilities such as tracking individual plants and replacements and cost centers etc.

This system wouldn’t come anywhere close to the features of Charlie’s product, but it will serve a useful purpose at a very reasonable price.

Charlie...are you out there. talk to us :)

Cell Phone...call in...call out... all calls are logged from a tower...location,time,etc....cell phone...cell phone...cell phone

Hey, I have an idea,,,,anyone ever tried using a cell phone as a time keeping/tracking device?

Fred,

How does one collate the data from the cell phone and make it useful in the sense of maximizing our efficiencies and simplifying our lives and those of our Hort Techs.

Doesn’t *someone* have to look at the call log and then enter the time data into *something* to collate and make it all useful data.

Am I missing something here buddy? Please correct me if I’m off-base, before I spend more time on exploring this!

Cell phone wouldn’t be able to track account *needs* such as replacements, would it?

Like I’ve said before, this isn’t about *tracking*.

Honest people are always gonna be honest and then there are those who will always try to break the system.

We’re talking about simplifying systems and collating accurate data here.

NOT tracking people!

OK, I’ve got it. We place some hi-tech moisture meters in each pot, and the meters can call the tech’s cell phone when the plants are thirsty!! Talk about simplifying the tech’s life!

Just kidding. Too much satirical plant lady movie tonight (see my post about Lyrics & Music). I don’t mean to make fun of what Steve is working on - I actually think it’s a good idea.

Pssst ..... Steve,

Resist the urge. He bites when you point out truths and how his free things really aren’t free, and when you point out that time equals money in the real world.

Resist the urge. Your efforts to explain things, even slowly, so as to be understood .... will be wasted.

Read back on that other posting .... in his world 8,000 minutes takes NO real time for his manager per month. You, I and everybody else know different. And remember, he said it was free .... but when it came down to it, it wasn’t. You shouldn’t put much effort into that. If it was so great .... he would have told the truth from the beginning, and he wouldn’t have issues with questions, right ? And you and I both asked questions that he flat out refused to answer, remember ?

Let it go and consider that source. Just pointing out the obvious.

Debbie

Steve, sorry for the delayed response. I have been very busy to say the least. We get the info in a digital file format. Pretty simple it works for us.

Debbie, I see you have typed something regarding something but all I see and hear is YADDA, YADDA, YADDA, imagine that.

Sincerely,
FRED
The source for the best dang wheat grass in S. Fl. ROFLMAO