Time is Money

 Parts, supplies, pieces, components, all of the things that are required for you and I to do our job. You know, frequently when something breaks, we have to get a new, whatever that something is, we have to replace it, we have to install it, and then we test to make sure that new something works. But that implies that we have to have the something already.

Here's where it's a good idea to be sure that you're on the same page, in the same book with your property manager or whomever it is that we as the maintenance team go to, to ensure that we're, uh, on the same page regarding the budget if we need to go run to the store. Every single time one thing fails, we're throwing away money.

It costs time, and time is money. What I'm getting at here is it's a good idea to constantly have a regular stock of parts that we need to use all the time. Chances are you have a good idea of what they are, do yourself a favor and organize it. By that, I mean just start with 25, 25 parts, door stops, doorknobs, faucets, aerators cartridges, uh uh, all of the things that go into doing what it is that you do at your property.

Now, I can't tell you what those are. Only, you know, if you go to your community manager, they may have an idea just because chances are they're the one paying the bill or signing the bill. Have a stock of parts in place. Do yourself a favor and get it organized. I'm not talking about organizing the shop.

Though that's important too. Organize the process. By that, I mean once you have those 25 parts that you're starting with those items and things that you know you're going to need, figure out how many of them generally you use in a month. That's what you should have at the beginning of every month. If you don't, that means somebody's gonna have to go run to the store before the end of the month.

And that's time. Not only that, if we don't have the most common items, our residents can tell. If you go, for example, into a resident's apartment that their toilet is running and you need to replace a toilet flapper, but you don't have a toilet flapper, and we're gonna have to make the resident wait until tomorrow to get a toilet flapper if we're honest.

Our resident has a right to ask the question. I pay how much in month A a month in rent, and you don't have a toilet flapper. It really doesn't inspire confidence with our residents. Do yourself a favor. Get the process of your part ordering organized.