Short of two foam units at the last site of the day
An engineer has five extinguisher services today. At the fourth, a care home, several units are due for replacement by age. The van is short of the right foam units, because the engineer used them at the second site and did not expect more. The spares box is low on tamper seals and hose assemblies. The engineer services what they can, notes the rest and books a return trip.
Meanwhile the depot has units stacked that nobody takes out, and engineers keep their own reserves under the seats because the stores count is never right.
Why van stock is guesswork
Extinguisher servicing uses a predictable mix of units and spares, but the mix for tomorrow depends on the sites, their registers and the age of each unit. Nobody puts that together before the engineer leaves.
- Van stock is not recorded, so nobody knows what each van holds.
- Units replaced on site are not deducted from van stock.
- The registers for tomorrow's sites are not used to plan loading.
- Spares such as seals, pins and hoses run out without warning.
- Returned units for refill, recycling or disposal are not tracked.
What short vans cost
Return visits waste engineer time and annoy customers who expected it all done at once. Replacement sales can be lost. Stock is duplicated across vans and depot. And returned units, which may need refilling, recycling or disposal, pile up without records, which makes it hard to show what happened to them.
Van stock planned from tomorrow's sites
We build a stock system for your vans and depot that uses the extinguisher registers for upcoming visits to plan what each van should carry.
- Each van and the depot are stock locations. Units and spares are recorded by type and size.
- When the engineer records a replacement or spare used on a visit, it comes off their van stock automatically.
- Each evening, the system looks at tomorrow's sites for each engineer, checks their registers for units likely to need replacement by age or last visit's notes, and compares with what is in the van.
- The engineer receives a loading list: what to take from the depot, and what they already have enough of.
- Units removed from site are recorded with their destination, such as refill, recycling or disposal, so returns can be tracked through to the end.
- The depot sees a reorder list based on stock levels and upcoming visits.
| Item | Today | With planned van stock |
|---|---|---|
| Van contents | Unknown | Recorded and updated from use |
| Tomorrow's needs | Engineer's guess | Worked out from site registers |
| Spares | Run out without warning | Low stock flagged |
| Removed units | Pile up at the depot | Tracked to refill or disposal |
The loading list is a guide, based on your registers and your rules about replacement. The engineer still decides on site what each unit needs.
An evening and a morning with the loading list
At six in the evening, the engineer gets tomorrow's list: take four foam units and two CO2 units from the depot, top up tamper seals, and the rest is already in the van. The care home's register shows several units reaching your replacement age, so they are included. In the morning the engineer loads from the list instead of guessing. At the care home, replacements are fitted on the first visit, and the removed units are recorded for return.
Returned units, followed to the end
Units taken off site are easy to lose track of. They go in the back of the van, then onto a pile at the depot, and months later nobody can say which came from where. With each removed unit recorded against the site it came from and its destination, the depot can see what is waiting for refill, what is going for recycling and what has already gone, and the office can answer a customer who asks what happened to the units taken from their building.
What changes
Fewer return visits for missing units. Stock that moves instead of sitting in the depot or under van seats. Engineers who trust the stock system enough to stop hoarding. And a clear record of every unit removed from a customer site and where it went.
Is this happening with your vans?
- Engineers return to sites because the van was short.
- Nobody knows what is in each van.
- Spares run out without warning.
- Removed units pile up without records.
- Engineers keep private reserves of stock.