What Time is it? It's TOOL TIME!!

I am often contacted by agencies that are concerned with tool time metrics for their work and asset management software.  They want to know how I handle recording tool time on a work order and are very focussed on the best strategies to employ to capture this data.  

Inevitably, I ask them what problem are they trying to solve.  What decisions are they going to make utilizing this data and how are they going to extract the data and apply it to the decisions that need to be made?

These questions are typically followed by several moments of dead air.  

Once we get to peeling the layers of this onion, the most common reason they are focussed on tool time has very little to do with actual wrench wielding time and more about lining up work geographically and minimizing the time wasted driving from one job to the next by grouping jobs together that are located close to one another.  And that is a problem that doesn't actually require recording tool time versus windshield time to solve.

This is most easily addressed by integrating your work and asset management system with your geographic information system (GIS) and plotting your work orders on the map by asset location.  It is quite easy to see your work order pin drops on the map, select a number of them grouped together, and bulk edit them to assign labor and set the status to scheduled.  

This way your field technician looks at the system with it filtered for work assigned to their labor designation and in the scheduled status.  Just like that, you have created a route for the day with work orders all geographically located close to one another.  

To make this work, you need to be able to filter your map view by labor type and work order status.  For instance, if you wanted to create a route for your mechanic you would want to be able to filter your map to show work in the waiting to be scheduled status where the lead craft is mechanic to make it easier to select a cluster of work orders and bulk update them to assign them to a specific mechanic and change the work order status to scheduled.  

If you still want to differentiate your labor types and record tool time versus windshield time, a useful strategy is to make labor codes.  Let's consider a single work order that we want to charge labor to.  In this example, let's say we spent some planning time on the job doing things like reviewing prints, procuring parts, and gathering the tools and materials necessary.  We also spent some time driving to the remote location in order to execute the work.  Of course we spent some time actually turning tools and making the repair.  And, finally, we spent some time cleaning up and closing the work order with all necessary data, comments, and pictures documented.  

So, by using labor codes we make these charges to this work order:

• Labor Code 1 - Job Planning - 2 hours (covers reviewing prints, parts procurement, etc.)
• Labor Code 2 - Windshield Time - 0.5 hours (covers travel time to the job)
• Labor Code 3 - Tool Time - 4 hours (this is the craftsperson's happy place, slinging tools)
• Labor Code 4 - Admin Time - 0.25 hours (this is the craftsperson's unhappy place, doing that pesky paperwork)

As you can see, recording labor charges that are coded or categorized takes keeping track of your time and then making multiple time entries against the work order, each with the proper labor code.  It is a time consuming prospect that has a price tag attached to it.  If you add minutes to the closing of a work order by requiring this type of data input, those minutes add up when you consider it is being done on every work order that is being closed.  

As an organization, you really need to ask yourself if the investment cost of collecting this data is worth anything to you?  Are you going to review this data at some interval?  Are you going to use this data to inform any decisions?  Is the value of the data worth the cost of capturing the data?

I cannot answer these questions for you but I will say that in my experience I have yet to see the value in forcing field staff to make multiple time entries on a single work order.  I would rather there be one time entry that reflects the number of hours it took for all phases of the job.  Just combine the planning, travel, tool time, completing the documentation, etc. into one labor charge and be done with it.  I can use that information the next time this job pops up on the to do list and know that it takes approximately 7 hours to execute the work from start to finish.  For me, that is a useful piece of information and I don't really care how much of the 7 hours is sitting in traffic and how much of it is turning those tools.  I just know that I have "consumed" 1 mechanic for the entire day with this one job.  

Remember, labor charges are no different than any other aspect of work and asset management and we should always keep it A.S.A.P. - As Simple As Possible.