Machinery maintenance

[lazy farmer]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

 

[bobk]

Same as your cows , regular service .

 

[br jones]

you have to lead from the front ,regular maintenance ie washing ,greasing checking oils etc ,i always found if you took pride in your kit ,it would get looked after better

 

[betweenthelines]

Same as your cows , regular service .

Similar to your cows, not a vet but regular preventative maintenance visits from an agricultural engineer

 

[glasshouse]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

Your staff will follow your lead of disinterest, so dont ask them to do it.
Get a professional in once a fortnight to grease, oil, change filters etc

 

[ACEngineering]

Your staff will follow your lead of disinterest, so dont ask them to do it.
Get a professional in once a fortnight to grease, oil, change filters etc

the problem with that is the professional will also quickly loose interest too, if the owner operators cant be be bothered to make an effort then why would anyone else worry

 

[glasshouse]

the problem with that is the professional will also quickly loose interest too, if the owner operators cant be be bothered to make an effort then why would anyone else worry

They shouldnt

 

[pappuller]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

Swap your kit more regularly that saves a sh!#load on repairs [emoji102][emoji102]

 

[Beef farmer]

Need to borrow some string lazy?

 

[Martyn]

Just change your kit every 24 months and pay the finance, do a full service package it's the bullet. You have no intrest in kit so keeping old gear with little TLC will only leed to major repair bills, expect finance is cheaper if you arnt half good with spanners or don't have the time.

 

[early riser]

Im firmly of the opinion that you should run bugger all kit, but the bit of kit you do run needs to be good.

So we have set the farm up to be able to be run with one loader and a quad bike. 3yr 0% finance, 3yr warranty, changed every 3yrs, almost guaranteed cost of ownership. Dealer serviced every 250hrs.

It’s all about knowing your limitations. Whilst I consider myself to be very good at managing cows, Im quite happy to admit I’m not particularly mechanically minded so I’m quite happy to delegate machinery maintenance to someone more competent than me in that area. I can’t be in two places at once so I’d rather milk cows and pay someone to look after my kit rather than pay someone to milk my cows so that I can tinker on with a load of old machinery

everyone’s situation and interests are different though

 

[Ducati899]

Make them pay for damages for repairs due to lack of maintenance,never understood people paying thousands for kit and not maintaining it…the mind boggles

 

[DairyGrazing]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

I have a sheet for everything that needs servicing tractors, shear grab, milk pump etc. Then write a to do list with weekly monthly yearly tasks and have a way of ticking them off. A white board helps as well. You need to have an assigned person and give them an allotted time to do it. I find collective responsibility for a machinery doesn't work for us!

Every so often pull a pin to check the difficult nipples are actually getting grease.

 

[ACEngineering]

They shouldnt

There's nothing worse than spending a lot of effort and time fixing something up nice for them to just wreak it again.

 

[bigw]

Buy a decent grease gun as it makes a huge difference to actually greasing stuff

 

[Zippy768]

The reality is, nothing wilts, suffers or dies if it doesn't get done. So goes to the bottom of the list. "I'll do it tomorrow" syndrome.

Also one has to lead from the front. The apple simply doesn't fall far from the tree.

Uncle once told me - just because there is no oil on the dipstick, doesn't mean there is no oil, because it doesn't go right to the bottom.........he has seized 3 machines in past history....and fixed all 3!!

 

[suffolksmallholder]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

Retire?
If you don't lead how can any one follow? general maintenance of basic machinery is just that, basic. A weekly work sheet is one thing to look at but this is all theory if you can't motivate.
Sorry to be blunt but this is one of my pet hates. Basic maintenance is simply that; Basic. It gets done or not and then the buck is in your court.
My Father had a chap who wouldn't ever look at his tractor yet expected anyone who rode as passenger in his very own RR to ensure their boots were clean before getting into the passenger seat. There is a very funny line between your'n 'n mine and that's where a f'ing big stick is needed. Incentive to 'do' may help.....
All my machinery is f'ing old. All if it starts, works, does what is expected of it, and I believe this is largely due to routine and simple preventative maintenance. Also has a good resale value.
SS

 

[Mur Huwcun]

Your staff will follow your lead of disinterest, so dont ask them to do it.
Get a professional in once a fortnight to grease, oil, change filters etc

A loader, PTO shaft, bearing etc etc won’t last much longer only being greased every two weeks than not greased at all unfortunately. Maintenance needs to be made easy to do, eg wash bay should be there with at least one washing lance with a sloped to tank floor ready to go then things will get washed. No point having a pressure washer stuck in some shed that heeds an extension lead and hosepipe everytime. Grease guns need to be accessible by diesel tank so loader etc gets some grease every time it’s filled up.

 

[Princess Pooper]

We run old kit, nothing fancy and use a one man band for repairs so he is loads cheaper than a main dealer. He is also not averse to coming out of an evening or weekend for urgent stuff. He brings us a bill every now and again and knows he will be paid there and then.

He has learned to be selective with who he is available to and who he is not, depending on their speed of payment and how reasonably they treat him (eg not reasonable to expect him to come out to a non-urgent repair 'out of hours'.

 

[melted welly]

Much as I am proud of the quality of care my cows receive I am ashamed at the lack of maintenance we do on our kit.
it’s costing us money I can ill afford.
Can the collective please point me in right direction to enable me to empower my staff to do this. It’s not an area I have any interest at all in but I need systems they can follow and I can check up on.
many thanks

If you have a quieter spell, have a blitz with the power washer and grease gun. Likewise oil changes, get everything done at once and write the date and hrs on the filters.

I made our timesheets double sided where one side records jobs and hrs worked, other side records machine used, checks, and any faults needing attention. These are then consolidated onto a weekly “to do list”. Requires a bit of encouragement (myself included) to keep it going, but from an hse point of view, having that recorded can only be a good thing if something goes wrong.

When you lock up, hide the keys next to the dipstick, no excuses then.