The '5 Minute Rule' And MBWA
...which takes us to Stuart's third rule: management by wandering around (MBWA).
Jim Winsor
Executive Editor
Mechanics can burn up costly time troubleshooting when there's poor supervision and guidance in the shop. The "5 Minute Rule" and "MBWA" are good guidelines to follow.
"You'd be surprised how much non-productive time there is in most maintenance shops. And more often than not, the problem is lack of good supervision and leadership."
That's Darry Stuart speaking. Darry's now a respected fleet executive, troubleshooter and motivator who started 35 years ago as an apprentice mechanic in a fleet shop in Massachusetts. He learned through the School of Hard Knocks how to be a first-class manager, teacher and motivator.
His specialty is helping fleet managers by working with them as a limited-time executive - usually a week per month - to get costs in line, help them in their shops and with vehicle spec'ing and purchasing practices. He's "been there and done that," to borrow a well-known phrase. Three years ago he took the plunge and formed his own business, DWS Fleet Management Services.
I met Darry some 30-plus years ago when he was assistant maintenance director at Perdue Farms in Salisbury, Md. Perdue is one of the country's largest integrated chicken producers and marketers, and is well known in Eastern markets for its good-looking trucks and amusing TV commercials done for many years by then CEO Frank Perdue, who is now retired.
Back then, Darry was an aggressive, hands-on maintenance foreman who spent at least 50% of his time on the shop floor directing mechanics and helping them to troubleshoot driver write-ups. These were often vague, like "truck won't pull," or "this thing has no springs," meaning a rough ride. This experience turned out to be the beginning of Stuart's "5 Minute Rule," even though at the time he thought it was just common sense.
We've stayed in touch over the years, and most of what I'm writing about here is what I learned from visiting several "before and after" fleet operations where Darry served as either VP of maintenance or VP of operations. It's been an interesting 30 years of learning for me, too.
What's the "5 Minute Rule?" Very simple. When a mechanic is trying to troubleshoot a problem, if he isn't making progress in five minutes, he should tell the shop foreman or manager, who, if he's competent, will guide the mechanic, look in a manual or get on a computer - whatever it takes to help solve the problem.
"With labor costs and shop overhead over a dollar a minute in most truck dealerships, and not very far behind in many fleet shops, it makes no economic sense to let mechanics flounder around when they're not getting results," he says.
Stuart's second rule is that shop managers must know what's going on in the shop, not be buried in an office pushing paperwork or with their noses in computer screens oblivious and inaccessible. "A supervisor must be accessible to his people and be involved," he says, which takes us to Stuart's third rule: "Management by wandering around (MBWA)."
A successful manager must keep his finger on the pulse of what he's managing. Even if his job requires a lot of office time, Stuart starts every day talking with his employees at all levels and just watching what's going on (MBWA). He takes a coffee break, wandering around, always looking, always asking, always interested and accessible.
One of his favorite MBWA activities is digging through dumpsters and peering into trash barrels. "There's a history of work practices there," he says. "You'd be surprised the amount of stuff mechanics throw out that has core value and should be tagged and turned in. Or ruined materials because of poor work practices." During one visit I watched Stuart dig two sets of brand new mud flaps out of a dumpster that a mechanic had cut incorrectly. They wouldn't fit flap brackets. "Waste, waste, waste."
