Paying operators

[chevytaHOE5674]

On the other hand if you dont pay him during the downtime (and find something for him to do), and the downtime becimes significant enough where his checks suffer then if he is a decent operator he will jump ship for somebody with a machine he can actually run and earn with.

I say that because if I was getting sent home unpaid all the time because of breakdowns I would be making phone calls asap and finding a different job. A good processor guy can always find work.......

[Gouterk]

We're just darned if we do and darned if we don't hahaha. Some more back story to all this is, the Fabtek was paid off when we upgraded to the Barko. We had a friend who wanted to purchase it so we shipped it off to him and he agreed to make us payments. Well due to issues (not the machine itself) he was unable to pay us. We soon realized we had a perfectly good machine that was debt free that we were giving away. So we offered a position in our company to this friend and brought the machine back under us and now he's the operator. So there's a lot more to the relationship then just some guy we hired. We've managed to create a nice web for ourselves. But all the feedback is great! I'm just trying to soak up as much wisdom and experience before we make any hard core decisions moving forward. If we need to we will park the Fabtek and call it good. But it's a tough pill to swallow. We spent $55,000 in rebuilding the head this summer. And put $20,000 into a new computer when the old one fried this fall. Probably have at least another $10,000 in other miscellaneous issues just this year. The engine is rebuilt, the undercarriage has been redone, new injector pump and a handful of things I can't remember. What else can possibly go wrong !?  :-\

[Skeans1]

I don't remember a Joral computer costing that much for a fabtek a Parker iQan is available for cheaper then 20k as well, one thing I'd do is not always run to cat for parts all of the stuff for the machine was built by someone for cat.

[Gary_C]

So whats a fair and balanced approach to paying for downtime ? Its our Fabtek 153 that caused the bulk of our production loss. Its on the brink of being rebuilt at this point haha.

Sorry to be so blunt but finding a way to pay for downtime is a fools errand.

 If we need to we will park the Fabtek and call it good. But it's a tough pill to swallow. We spent $55,000 in rebuilding the head this summer. And put $20,000 into a new computer when the old one fried this fall. Probably have at least another $10,000 in other miscellaneous issues just this year. The engine is rebuilt, the undercarriage has been redone, new injector pump and a handful of things I can't remember. What else can possibly go wrong !?  :-\

Sorry again but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. One good processor should easily be able to out produce a good forwarder, not be a bottleneck because of downtime.

[Firewoodjoe]

My opinion is that barko has to run period! Who ever runs it. Hire a mechanic or put a different operator in the barko. Parking a machine thats new and productive to fix a old one dosent sound productive to me. Maybe wages wouldn't be a problem if consistency on the production was resolved.

[Logger RK]

How about running the Barko 2 shifts a day & sell the old one. I'm not a CTL Logger,but don't it usually take 2 forwarders to keep up to a good running CTL machine? 

[Gouterk]

So whats a fair and balanced approach to paying for downtime ? Its our Fabtek 153 that caused the bulk of our production loss. Its on the brink of being rebuilt at this point haha.

Sorry to be so blunt but finding a way to pay for downtime is a fools errand.

If we need to we will park the Fabtek and call it good. But it's a tough pill to swallow. We spent $55,000 in rebuilding the head this summer. And put $20,000 into a new computer when the old one fried this fall. Probably have at least another $10,000 in other miscellaneous issues just this year. The engine is rebuilt, the undercarriage has been redone, new injector pump and a handful of things I can't remember. What else can possibly go wrong !?  :-\

Sorry again but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. One good processor should easily be able to out produce a good forwarder, not be a bottleneck because of downtime.

Well even our brand new Barko has had its fair share of production costing breakdowns, things that were out of our control and not what you would expect from a new machine. So it would appear regardless of the equipment, breakdowns are a factor we must budget for and take into account.  And yes, the Barko when running can over produce the forwarder. Even despite every random thing that could go wrong going wrong we still have the money in the bank to cover our 2-3 months of downtime. But our goal is to achieve a whole lot better then just paying bills. 

[Gouterk]

How about running the Barko 2 shifts a day & sell the old one. I'm not a CTL Logger,but don't it usually take 2 forwarders to keep up to a good running CTL machine?

If we found the right person but it would be difficult to find somebody able to work such off hours. Maybe in great quality wood you would produce enough for two forwards, but the wood and terrain we work with isn't the greatest. 

[luvmexfood]

A lot of different pay systems seem to be in use. In reading some of them I am pretty sure some of them do not meet the standards of the Fair Labor Standards Act. You have to be real careful with the definition of some one who is "salary". Look at in on the FLSA website. They have a lot of information and guides to assist both the business owner and an employee. 

There are some quirky things in there. For example, an hourly employee likes to come in 30 minutes early to get his machine ready. He is volunteering to do this and you don't pay him for it. That is a violation. An employer must pay for all hours worked. Even if they do it on there own. Back pay and penalties can get expensive.

[Matt601]

Excellent post.  I've dealt with all these issues over the years.  Gouterk if I was you I would think hard on getting rid of the old machine.  That sounds like the bottleneck.  When I plan my jobs the harvester is expected to harvest x amount of $/minute over x amount of hours/week.  It is hard to make up those lost minutes when the new harvester is sitting while working on an old one.  If the operator is not qualified enough to sit in the seat of the Barko while the other one is down he is not qualified to be there imho  Thankfully I have a very good harvester operator who goes the extra mile and I like to think I treat him accordingly.  Best of luck.  This industry is tough.

A good friend of mine has a small logging outfit. He is running 3 skidders, 2 loaders and 2 cutters. He has 5 trucks and hires others as needed. He always said he couldn't afford new equipment. Well a few years ago he bought all new equipment a big note. Well a few months ago he told me that he has never made as much even paying the note because of down time he is working not paying for it to be worked on. No one can make money working on there equipment. When the woods are dry you got to roll not work on stuff. 

[barbender]

Our processors don't typically out produce the forwarders. There's a lot of variables, with skid distance, number of sorts, and terrain having a big impact on forwarder productivity. Gouterk, I see a potential problem with how you have made employees of friends and relatives. I'm hesitant to work in those same situations, because I prefer to have friends and relatives versus an employer I'm mad at. If I go to work for someone, and all goes well and we end up friends in the end, great, but doing it the other way can lead to some hard feelings. Maybe the best thing you could do right now is sell the Fabtek to get some of that money back out of it, and let one employee go. A hard decision I realize, but if someone is going to be in a processor, It's not just an operator job. You're also a mechanic and electrical and hydraulic technician. Your husband getting pulled out of the main processor to go troubleshoot and wrench sounds like a distraction you don't need at this point.

[mike_belben]

its becoming more clear that instead of repo-ing your machine back, you took pity on a fellow and are now suffering for it yourselves.   Furthermore when the machine is down you take pity enough to pay him wages when he isnt doing a thing.  It sounds like he got the sweetheart end of the deal at your expense because youre too nice.

I think you might want to backtrack and fix the real issue.  Which is beginning to sound like this particular relationship.  
Im with barbender.  Let him go and park the machine as your husbands backup unit.  The wages saved on him will help cover a real mechanic to come work on whichever machine is down while wood is still being produced by your husband who isnt stopping as often.  

Meanwhile you were looking at lowbed.  Do you have a semi now for hauling logs?  Do you or he have CDL?

I have been a mechanic all my life and let me tell you i would love love love to just drive a truck most of the time.  If you find a good mechanic, get him his CDL and have him be your truck driver too.  Between driving, wrenching and PM's you will never run out of work for that fellow. Even if youre paying him $30 hour it will be critical work getting done while your husband churns out wood.  Remember your current repair situation means two machines parked and two wages to cover, thats very expensive.  

The variety of driving/fixing should make a day go by pretty fast and never create a monotonous rut of a lifestyle at work. Id love to be doing that for a good outfit when my kids are both in school.   

[snowstorm]

I don't remember a Joral computer costing that much for a fabtek a Parker iQan is available for cheaper then 20k as well, one thing I'd do is not always run to cat for parts all of the stuff for the machine was built by someone for cat.

the parts are built by skidmore for cat. i was talking to him at the equipment show in bangor last spring. so anyone with a fabtek might want to talk to him about parts

[Skeans1]

I don't remember a Joral computer costing that much for a fabtek a Parker iQan is available for cheaper then 20k as well, one thing I'd do is not always run to cat for parts all of the stuff for the machine was built by someone for cat.

the parts are built by skidmore for cat. i was talking to him at the equipment show in bangor last spring. so anyone with a fabtek might want to talk to him about parts

Jesse doesn't build the computers all of that is done by Joral who built the original computer as well as does the encoders, the new style is everything built in one box keypad and all.

[teakwood]

A good friend of mine has a small logging outfit. He is running 3 skidders, 2 loaders and 2 cutters. He has 5 trucks and hires others as needed