The Wasted Labor In A Truck Roll: A Data Review

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Last week, nClarity ran a survey to quantify the waste in your average (planned or unplanned) truck roll. Let’s walk through the results from each of the four questions and talk about what we learned. Every answer had the option to input a unique response (beyond the first 3 options listed).

The answers to the survey were anonymous, but here are the top 5 viewers of the survey (by job title) to give you a sense of who the respondents were:

1. Service Managers (28%)
2. Presidents (22%)
3. Account Managers (18%)
4. Project Managers (16%)
5. Owners (16%)

Question 1: What’s the average cost of a truck roll?

• The combined majority (51.5%) of respondents agreed that the cost of truck roll can reach at least $1,000.

As one respondent said, the cost of a truck roll will vary depending on many factors (incl. your rates, area/market, etc.), but if we take the mean of all the answers individually, we get an average cost of $998 or less for a truck roll.

Question 2: What % of a Tech’s Time Is Wasted Time?

Here’s where things get interesting.

• The overwhelming majority (95.8%) of respondents believe that between 5% and 30% of their techs’ time is wasted during the average truck roll.
• The biggest group (50%) of respondents believe that number is 15% at minimum. 

If we take our average truck roll cost of $998 and we assume labor accounts for 90% of that, then this data could mean that many contractors are spending between $135 and $270 on wasted labor per average truck roll.  

Question 3: What % of Emergency Truck Rolls Could Be Avoided?

• All (100%) agreed that at least 5% and all the way up to 75% of emergency truck rolls could be avoided with pre-dispatch issue diagnosis. 
• The combined majority (54.2%) put this figure at 15% minimum.

Question 4: What’s The #1 Reason Time Is Wasted On A Truck Roll?

Interestingly, no one took the option to input a unique response. Based on these results, the most common reason time is wasted on a truck roll is:

1. Lack of accurate diagnosis prior to truck roll
2. Having to return for correct tools/spares
3. Issues not getting fixed first time, getting called back

It’s also worth noting that lacking an accurate diagnosis prior to truck roll could also be the underlying cause of having to return for spares or getting call backs in many cases.

The Power of Intelligent Dispatch

These survey results suggest that if we resolve the aforementioned issues we can:

• Conservatively save 5% (and in many cases, up to 30%) of our labor hours per truck roll.
• Conservatively avoid 5% (and in many cases 15-75%) of emergency truck rolls all together.

At an assumed average cost of $998 per truck roll, the billable capacity ($) that’s currently being wasted on many truck rolls really starts to add up, even at conservative estimates.

There are Service Ops process improvements that can help to reduce some waste, but the far superior way to eliminate these issues is with Intelligent Dispatch. 

Intelligent Dispatch is only possible with a Predictive Maintenance Platform like nClarity, which provides real-time machine data collection and service ops machine analytics tools to access data from anywhere, including in the office (desktop) and onsite (mobile). 

This enables Service Ops teams to always KNOW (the diagnosis, machine, tech, tool, & spare) BEFORE they GO, virtually eliminating the wasted labor from the average truck roll and increasing contract GP. In addition, wasted labor can be reallocated to new contracts. This “new-found” available labor can then be converted into additional billable capacity to meet demand from a growing contract base. A 2-for-1 benefit.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can eliminate waste from your truck roll process, you can schedule a discovery call with nClarity.