The #1 Mistake Snow Contractors Make That Wastes Time and Money Each and Every Snow Event

Or How to See the Trees through the Forest…

I want to share with you the #1 mistake that most snow companies make that keep them from wasting so much time covering each snow event: Companies do not have there routes prepared preseason which makes them change their routes for each snow events

Why is this important? The time it takes to create routes for each event. The movement companies make creating new labor and resources for each event. And lastly, the new crews that are reintroduction of properties need more time to understand the properties, never mind waste possible damage to properties.

This article will help you create snow routes that are consistent for almost 90% of the events and help you make your crews more effective in each snow events

Route Boards

The Route Boards are the first step to create your snow routes for your company. These boards are some of the most important boards that help crews become efficient, consistent, better producers before each and every storm event.

They are created in the beginning of the snow season and give your production team the knowledge of each area and each crew capacity for a snow event.

And, they are done before the first snowflake hit the ground. Yes, Yes, Yes, There will be a need to tweak the routes per snow event. Let’s face it all snow events are NOT the same. And we have labor and equipment issues. But with preparing the routes we are looking at a way for the production men and women to have the foundation or base knowledge of 90% of what has to be done. The work of tweaking 10% or so of the routes each snow event becomes minimal.

Step one: create the boards:

Site Boards – these boards hold the hour details for the plowing and for the shoveling. These boards hold this information until it is ready to go into a route.
Route Boards – these boards are where we build the routes. The boards can be divided into your zones or areas. These boards will now give you a clue to how much work per area is needed for Labor, equipment, and materials by keeping a running total of lots and walk.

NOTE: Capacity for Trucks, drivers, and even material can be quickly understood. Example: if we state that each route is built on a 6-hour total snowplowing total. Just divide 6 into the total lot square footage and you will know how many trucks and operators you will need. With the same answer, you can estimate tons of material per event per lot.

Create your routes:

Routes will be built to a 6-hour maximum total work schedule.

From our previous articles, we have the Capacity Boards for Trucks, Employees, Materials, and Subcontractors. We have the Site Boards with all the sites and the resources the site needs.

Group the sites that are in the same area and place the sites onto a route. Once 6 hours of labor is reached, start a new route. An example of a board is below. This board can have up to 15 routes.

We can add the Route number, the truck, the workers, and the sites with the hours needed.

I know what you are thinking. Really, Domenic 6 hours of work and that is it!!! I can do 12 hours. I have done 20 hours!!! Yes, I have too. But can you imagine in your near future, where your crew can perform the work for any storm 18 inches or less, PERIOD. If it is storm of 1-5 inches, we have about 6 hours of work. If it is a storm of 6-10 inches, we have bout 8 hours of work. If it is 10-12 inches, we have about 10 hours of work. And so on. When the blizzards come by our way, we have the capacity to do that work. How would your company feel, knowing that they can perform optimally? How would your clients feel, knowing you are capable of any crisis?

Once all of the sites are placed into a route, for both plowing and for shoveling, you can put the routes in this handy dandy Route summary sheet. Each sheet can be an area.