Features

Who needs an operator’s manual anyway?

by Jr. Grantham

Reading articles about the importance of properly operating and maintaining equipment is about as interesting as reading the operator’s manual that comes with every piece of new equipment, so both are usually ignored.

Now, I know that every owner believes the manual is important, if for no other reason than he paid big bucks for the equipment that came with it. However, boredom, coupled with a lack of time, can defeat most all attempts to read the owner’s manual, so it is put on the shelf or thrown behind the truck seat with all the other important business documents.

So why would I write yet one more boring article on the importance of reading the operator’s manual? The answer is that I can’t help it.

As a service manager, I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of dollars just plain wasted because the owner or the operator didn’t take a few minutes to learn what type of grease to use and how often; or someone didn’t know to change a filter; or someone didn’t check the fluid level in gearbox B because they didn’t know there was a gearbox B.

I could go on, but you get the point. Boredom creates ignorance, and ignorance leads to shop time, and shop time eats into profits. I call them “self-inflected equipment failures,” and as much as we would like to blame the manufacturer, we can’t because the preventative measures are in the operator’s manual – plain as day.

I got a call one day from a customer who was working about 200 miles away. They had a job they needed to finish quickly, and the crane operator was unable to swing the boom. It was cold and snowing, so to make sure I was there on time, I drove up the night before. I met the operator early the next morning, and he explained the problem.

“When I move the swing lever, it won’t swing,” he said. “It just suddenly stopped working.”

I asked him about the lever next to him, and he said he didn’t know anything about it and never used it. I told him to push it down, and when he did, the crane started working. It was magic! Somehow he had engaged the swing brake, and since he had not read the operator’s manual, he didn’t know there was one. He made me promise not to tell his boss when we sent the invoice for the service call.

Another time I drove several hours to help a customer that couldn’t get his dozer into reverse. When I got there, all I did was pump some grease into a fitting on the gearbox that said, “Add grease here.” Once again, it was magic, and it worked fine after that. However, that was some pretty expensive magic.

I don’t care how boring you think it is, the operator’s manual can save you thousands of dollars in repair costs and down time. It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it. But if you don’t think you have time to read it, we service shop managers will always be ready to help you get your equipment back on the job.