Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/285780
April 2014 | EquipmentWorld.com 52 tors or machines that are idling too much. Calvert emphasizes, how- ever, that the information should be used to encourage positive behavior not to criticize or penalize operators. "We believe the vast majority of operators are professionals," Calvert says. "If they are idling too much it's because they haven't been told there is a preferred way to do it. Education and encouragement are the ticket. If there is an operating tip that can help them, we present it as a best practice, but we're not in a position to understand every jobsite, machine, or operator. So en- courage and reward improvement and don't penalize people who are slower to improve." Communicate Calvert also emphasizes the need to create a vigorous communica- tion strategy that promotes your anti-idling policy. As an example he cites a program Komatsu launched in 2012, signing up almost 1,200 fl eets across the United States. Customers that signed up received various promotional items. "All that stuff was messaged to say: 'Idle time depends on your behavior. When you can, and you're not using the machine, turn it off,'" Calvert says. "We believed the whole campaign began with educating equipment owners and managers and giving them materi- als to educate their operators and operations people." Company owners and managers also need to get behind an anti-idle policy if it is going to succeed, Cal- vert says. "Any policy that's going to have some legs and help a com- pany has to be embraced by senior management. The entire company has to get behind the policy." Culture of improvement Another benefi t to creating an anti-idling policy is that it can create a mindset of continuous im- provement. "When you start focusing on one area of improvement and you start to get that culture inside your company then the next area of improvement starts to reveal itself," Calvert says. "No idle is very understandable and very actionable," Calvert says. "If you take the fi rst step, then other things are going to become obvious once you start to change your busi- ness and make it better. I think no- idle is a great place to start. It instills a culture of improvement." maintenance | continued Posters, along with numerous other promotional materials, helped Komatsu customers spread the no-idle gospel.