[MD] Quality forklift performance

[David Thomas]

On 3/11/13 9:07 AM, "Jan Anders Andersson" <jananderses at telia.com> wrote:

>> Free to intersperse the tedium of his day with a little bit of fun
> 
> If he was working for me I could fire him for fooling around with the machine
> equipment.
D:
That's why he is not and should not be working for people, like you, who's
understanding of business and workers is limited to theories.

If you watch the video closely the forklift is parked at the start and when
the demonstration is over he exits stage left probably returning to work. So
he was probably on break, using his own time to practice and improve his
skills. So what did it cost his company? Two minutes worth of fuel. Why does
Caterpillar regularly run heavy equipment rodeos around the world? And why
do companies, at some cost, regularly send their best operators to them?
Because without an operator the equipment is a quickly depreciating boat
anchor. And the difference between a highly skilled operator and an average
one may be the difference between business success and failure. The bean
counter setting in an air-conditioned office graphing, containers per shift,
per machine hour, per operator, completely misses this point.

This is a "speed" formula. High quality operators optimize speed, precision,
and safety. Large equipment, in the hands of low quality operators, can be
highly destructive to their environment, customer products, and themselves.
These factors can and do drive costs,too. Then there is the social factor of
high quality operators driving lower quality operators to be better.

Dave