Bought a cheap suction hose from a new supplier last month, lost a full day's work and about $400 in downtime.

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, you're so right... it's never just the part cost. We had a cheap belt snap on a piece of equipment last summer. The belt was maybe 30 bucks, but the whole crew just sat there for three hours waiting for me to get back with a new one. Still had to pay them for the full day, plus we lost the whole afternoon's work on that site. That little belt probably cost us over a grand when you add it all up.

avery89725d ago

That downtime cost is actually higher than you think. You need to factor in the labor for the guys standing around, not just the lost job. We had a similar thing happen with a cheap coupling. The real kicker was paying the crew for a full day of doing nothing while we scrambled for a replacement. That missing part cost us way more than its price tag. It's a lesson you only learn once.

evan29525d ago

But is downtime always that expensive? Sometimes you can just move the crew to another task.