Using Diamond Tools for Floor Work
- 1. USING DIAMOND TOOLS FOR FLOOR WORK - A Productivity Approach; Dollars and Sense. Increased productivity is the single most important area where anyone involved in finishing floor surfaces should concentrate their efforts to improve their profitability and competive position in the marketplace. The use of diamond for restoring natural, synthetic or concrete floors is now widespread throughout the industry and continously gaining adepts. Twenty years ago, diamond tools for floors were introduced and spurred an new industry for addressing floors, whether residential, commercial or indistrial.Contractors performing a refinishing operations are aware of the benefit of diamond tools to grind, hone and polish. If at first, the acceptance for these new polishing tools was somewhat difficult albeit from the most progressive users, and their introduction proved slow as they displaced established and common finishing and maintenance procedures. Whereas today, it is now an accepted fact that using diamonds for performing any abrasion operation on floors is a very user friendly and the most economical way to proceed. None would tackle such a task without them. Prices for diamond tools have decreased dramatically. The ever increased offering by Asian manufacturers seeking new markets and foreign currency, being the most direct cause for the drop in prices, at a fraction of what they cost a decade ago, will likely continue for many years on their downward tendency. Nevertheless, it is the opinion of the writer that there has been a fundamental oversight of the underlying reasons for utilizing the cheapest diamond tools for saving money when working on floors, stemming from an erroneous calculation justifying their use. Despite being lower in costs, using any lesser performing tools impedes performance for a productive approach to a job by not focussing on the productivity gains of getting a job done faster and wasting labor in the pursuit of lower consumabe costs. An analysis for a typical task shows this point. Consider the full restoration of a 1000 ft2 floor and comparing doing the job with regular abrasives and with distinct types of diamond discs at the low, mid and high end of the spectrum. LOW HI-END ASSUMPTIONS: (1)- $20 per hour with overhead (building, office, taxes, etc.). (2)- The total number of hours worked by a single man to refinish a 1000 ft2 floor, without any edge work. (3)- A complete abrasive set for each system. (4)- Life of abrasive is based on full wear per number of total square feet achievable. (5)- Number of man per day of work required to finish the floor. (6)- Sales associated with this job based, on a contract price of $ 6 per ft2 EXAMPLE COST COSTS (1) Labor Cost $20 $20 (2) Working Time 100 75 Total labor $2,000 $1,500 Labor costs as % of job 92% 84% (3) Abrasive tool cost $360 $570 (4) Expected life of tool 2000 2000 Abrasive costs for job $180 $285 Abrasive costs as % of job 8% 16% Total labor & Abrasive Cost $2,180 $1,785 (5) days to complete job 6 5 TOTAL JOB COST $2,180 $1,785 (6) Sales $6,000 $6,000 JOB PROFIT $3,820 $4,215 Profit per Day $637 $843 Difference n /a $395 It is expected that costlier diamonds tools will outperform their “value” counterpart and contractors are famiiar wIth this “better” quality concept. This comparizon allows quantifying the ability of better performing tools to deliver both a superior and even finish surface the first time aound, and without a need for any rework, when compared to the lesser priced tools, and doing in a faster way. This example highlights the fundamental relationship between slow production capability tools and a related low cost versus that of the higher costing tool which performs tasks rapidly and in a predictable manner. It is shown that it is mis guided to pay less for a lower productivity tool, as it is the labour content of a job which ultimately holds the key to to increased profitability. Yet, often only the diamond tool cost is considered when measuring tool worthiness, i.e: by exclusively calculating tool life.
- 2. Ultimately, the total cost of diamonds used for polishing represents a small portion of the overall cost of the job when compared to the labor costs, even under the worst possible conditions as seen below. Overall high production diamond polishing tools significantly improve labour productivity and increase net profit per job. They pay for themselves and increase job profit. Further examples of the same job shows that a contractor will significantly decrease the time spent performing a single job. This in turn allows more jobs to be undertaken during an equivalent period of time, and increase the company's job completion rate to be substantially, leading to higher sales and profitability in a very significant manner. This despite an actual increase of over 3 times the consumable utilization cost associated with the better and more expensive diamond abrasive. When contractors understand that switching to more performing diamond polishing system over the less expensive “value” counterpart, their profits will increase as will their bottom line after each job. Further analysis; In showing additional scenarios, we compare different scenarios of profitability for the same job by varying and exploring the best versus worst cases scenarios typically encountered: Bold characters indicate scenario change for each column SCENARIO BASE 1 2 3 4 5 6 LOW COST HI-END Labor Cost $20 $20 $20 $20 $20 $20 $25 Working Time 100 100 100 100 90 65 65 Total Labor $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $1,800 $1,300 $1,625 Labor costs as % of job 92% 94% 90% 92% 89% 74% 78% Abrasive tool cost $360 $360 $570 $570 $570 $570 $570 Expected life of tool 2000 3000 2500 3500 2500 1250 1250 Abrasive costs for job $180 $120 $228 $163 $228 $456 $456 Abrasive costs as % of job 8% 6% 10% 8% 11% 26% 22% Total Labor & Abrasive. Cost $2,180 $2,120 $2,228 $2,163 $2,028 $1,756 $2,081 # of man / day to complete job 6 6 6 6 5.5 4.5 4.5 TOTAL JOB COST $2,180 $2,120 $2,228 $2,163 $2,028 $1,756 $2,081 Sales $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 PROFIT $3,820 $3,880 $3,772 $3,837 $3,972 $4,244 $3,919 W H A T - I F (A) (B) (C) (D) (F) (E) Longer Premature Longer Sm. Product. Reduced Hi Labor Life Wear Life Increase Job Time Costs Per Job ---- $60 ($48) $17 $152 $424 $99 Per Day ---- $10 ($8) $3 $28 $94 $22 CONCLUSIONS – what-if! 1. Significantly Increased tool life (A) by 50% to 3000 ft2, yield negligible prodfitability changes. 2. Whereas faster producing tool, experiencing either Premature Wear (B) or Longer Life (C) also show little change. 3. It is when any (Small) Productivity Increase (D), Reduced Job Time (E) all have favorable effects on profitability if productivity is increased. 4. Even Higher Labor Costs (F) are absorbed by added performance showing that training of more qualified personel equally pay in the long run.