Industrial Distribution

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Listening skills
August 21, 2006

Listening to your employees can often result in big savings. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which is saving nearly $130,000 a year simply because one of their employees, a repair foreman, visited a wholesale butcher shop to buy steak tips.

Let me start at the beginning. The repairman, according to a story in the Boston Globe, was at the shop buying steak tips when he was told he had to wear a protective cap to cover his hair, as were the workers in the shop. The man noticed that a nearby butcher’s head was the same size as the intake air cover on the MBTA’s train motors. These motors had been a con-stant source of irritation for the T during the winter because light snow is often sucked up by a moving train and is drawn into a caged air intake designed to cool the motors. Over time, with stops and starts, the snow melts and refreezes into three-inch thick squares that block the in-take, causing the motor to overheat and drastically fail, the Globe reported

The repair man took the cap home and a few days later used electrical tape to secure the hair net to a motor. The air got in, but the snow stayed out. A perfect solution.

MBTA officials estimate the solution will save $126,000 a year in engine repairs and noted that rebuilding a motor can cost $9,000, and replacing a motor can cost between $35,000 and $50,000.

We’ve written before about employees who have saved their companies hundreds of thou-sands of dollars with cost-saving ideas.  A manager at a chemical plant several years ago started an employee “idea of the quarter” award, and one suggestion alone saved more than $25,000 the first year.

Various surveys show that many employers’ biggest gripe is that managers don’t take the time to ask them how to solve a problem. Maybe it’s time we did.

Posted by Jack Keough on August 21, 2006 | Comments (3)