Handle this one

[dmk395]

I am looking for some advice here. Currently my three man mow crew, cuts about 20 accounts per day. One man on the trimmer and the others on Exmark 48" belt drive walkbehinds...one bagger, one mulcher. How would you speed up this operation, and still satisfy your customers. Upgrade to hydros with sulkeys? Ztr's? Standers?

[trimmer]

If you just upgraded to sulkies it would increase your productivity with the current equipment. The hydro walkbehinds will also increase your productivity.

[Acute Cut]

3 man crew can only do 20 per day? EGATS! Get rid of the belt drives. You will find that a walk behind with hydro will increase your time CONSIDERABLY! I speak from MUCH experience here. I can do about 16 lawns in a day just by myself with just me and my 52" hydro walk behind. Most of mine are just residentials though. Definately get a sulkey type of unit. Research as many types as you can. Perhaps if you have friends in the industry in your area maybe they will let you demo them.

Three years ago i was maxing out at 12 lawns a day with a three person crew. Now i do 16 solo. My math aint so good, is that an improvement? hehe.

Hydro, sulkey, and mulch. You will find your days rather quiet. Good luck.

[KirbysLawn]

YEa, what these guys said. The easiest fix is the sulkie and work from there.

[Esby33]

I would buy one ZTR and one hydro walkbehind. Or--Two ZTR's. I ran strickly walkbehinds prior to buying a Lazer Z this last fall. I tell ya what, they really cut well, and increase your productivity a ton. Even if they are the same size deck as your walkbehinds, they are so much easier to manuvre. And of course speed....buy one and you will buy another, gaurnteed.

[awm]

ztr an one less helper ,or two trucks an one more helper.

[65hoss]

Sulky will fix your immediate need. If you had a good Z (exmark ) then you probably could get rid of 1 helper or put on a few more jobs. 1 Z can do more than 2 w/b's without sulkies.

[AltaLawnCare]

The Lazer really helped me. :)

The biggest improvement is that when its time to use the 21", trimmer, or edger , I'm not nearly as tired from fighting the WB, so I move much quicker...

Not to mention the 20 - 30 % from the mower itself. Having a reverse also helps alot. I was told you can't mow grass in reverse, BULL-SHT !!

I've wasted waay- way too much time and energy wrestling with the gear drive Toro....:angry:

[Pro-Cut Lawns]

I would have one ZTR (exmark), one walkbehind and 2 men. They both jump in on the property with the ZTR mowing the wide open areas and walkbehind on the smaller areas of the property, or, just split the property in half one doing the front and one the back, etc. First one done grabs the trimmer and second one done grabs the blower. Knock it out and move on to the next property.

[Runner]

Were the mulcher and bagger you were refering to the walkbehinds? If so, get rid of all the bagging jazz. Thia is WAY too time consuming. Do you ever have to double cut with the mulcher? If so, I would CERtainly go to side discharge with that, as well. Other than that, what all these other guys said hits it right on the mark. Oh, and if there is a little belt slippage, (which there's ALways SOME) put a little belt dressing on your belts on each side, only about an inch or two needs to be squirted, because the stuff works it's way around. Then, make sure your guys run these machines out away from stuff for a bit to get used to the feel, because I guarantee they've never ran any machine THIS responsive. You let out those handles, and the machine LITERALLY wants to JUMP from it's place. Like NOW!

[dmk395]

Is everyone mulching with the Z's?

[brentsawyer]

I'm running 20 per day in 8.5-9 hours at an average size of approx 12,000sq/ft. With one 52" Z and one 36" WB. I do the mowing and the other guy does the weed eating, with both of us finishing with the blowing. Pretty simple and efficient.

[scottb]

I am currently on a 3 man crew on the big stuff 2 are mowing the 3rd weedeating ,edging etc first one done mowing assist with the weedeating and blowing. The most we have done in a 8 hr eight was 18 and our drive times are awful. But its not my crew just taking the oppurtunity to see what I can learn . Also a one or two wheeled velke will save you a lot of time and fatigue.

[garapeto]

I would talk with the crew first and ask them how the could speed things up.

[Grasshog]

It would be hard to judge how to speed up your crew with out watching them in action. Do to lots of rain three weeks ago we ran pretty far behind. Myself and one other employee cut 23 in one 8 hour day. 12 was in a five block area.

[jeffex]

let 1 guy take his own vehicle and be the trimmer for the day he can usually get ahead of the mowing and blowing crew and then double back to help out when he has all the yards trimmed. I did this one day and it worked great. No wasted time waitng for someone to finish before you move to the next lawn. Leave 1 trimmer with the mow crew as a backup . Offer a bonus to the crew for the extra lawns you can do. If they do 3-4 extra lawns pay for thier lunch or cut them a split on 40% of extra lawns done. you will still make 60% more of what you didn't have anyway. Those last couple of lawns will be the ones theylook forward to and they will be the most motivated when they are getting tired so thy can find the extra effort. Then write the bonus off as PROMOTION money.