Keep Your Gear in Top-Notch Condition and Save Money

If your company has contracts for maintaining and servicing your equipment and vehicles, chances are, you're spending more than you need to.

A sure-fire way to save money is to hire your staff to do the work for you. Not only will in-house maintenance cut costs, it's more convenient and boosts efficiency.

For example, your business will be more productive if your vehicles and equipment continue to run during normal hours and are serviced by staff mechanics after hours.

Survey Skills

Before you move to in-house maintenance, though, take an inventory of your employees' skills. Then, assign them to jobs that match those skills. These tasks can be part of an employee's job description or they can be in addition to their traditional assignments and you pay them extra compensation.

If you don't have employees who can make major repairs, it might still be cost-effective to hire mechanics on staff for some of the smaller jobs, rather than paying for long-term service contracts.

Small and regular repairs and service that your staff handles keeps your gear tuned up, prevents maintenance from becoming an overwhelming nightmare and eliminates costly down time. It all adds up.

Cut Insurance Costs to the Bone

A goal of every company should be to get the most out of your resources and cut unnecessary costs wherever possible. One area where you are likely to find some costs you can trim is the insurance premiums you pay on plant and equipment.

Here are three suggestions to lower your insurance costs while ensuring that you are still adequately covered for any significant losses. Contact your insurance professional to see if they apply in your situation.

1. Dump insurance on assets that would cause no economic loss to the company if they were destroyed and could inexpensively be replaced.
2. Suspend coverage on seasonal vehicles and equipment. Ask your insurance professional if this is possible. If the equipment is collateral for a loan you might have to keep minimum liability coverage. While you're at it, see if your state motor vehicle department offers seasonal registration tags at a reduced cost.
3. Don't insure assets you no longer have. If you trimmed your vehicle fleet last year, did you cancel the policies on the vehicles you no longer own? Did you cancel the coverage immediately? If you didn't, you might be able to receive a rebate.

Contact your insurance professional to see if these apply in your situation.