Forklift Repair: What You Can And Can't Do Yourself

When trying to determine whether to repair your forklift yourself or send it out for service, there are several factors to consider: is the repair possible without special tools and equipment, is it cost effective for you to do it yourself rather than send it out for repair, and is it safe for the average person to tackle. Depending on your knowledge of forklift parts and operating technique, you may or may not be able to do it yourself.

On May 16, 2001, Bellwether Exploration Company merged with Bargo Energy Company and formed Mission Resources Corporation. Mission Resources Corporation is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company that acquires, develops and produces crude oil and natural gas along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, in the Permian Basin, and offshore Texas and Louisiana. Mission Resources began as a company that outsourced most of it’s staff in an effort to avoid internally staffing its own teams and to utilize experienced teams for it’s engineering, geology and exploration, and accounting needs. Mission Resources was failing miserably as a company due to high overhead and low production.

In August 2002, under new management, the decision was made to bring all teams in house in an effort to lower outsourcing costs and create a strong internal force. Many of the dilemmas management faced initially were ways to work cohesively since each were used to acting as “consultants” rather than segments of one large team. Many problems were quickly resolved though many more still exist, even two years later. One area that deserves particular attention is Senior Management’s concern with the high cost of shipping, express delivery, courier service and office supply purchase. What management is basing its numbers on is the budget and annual cost in such areas during Mission’s early days. When Mission Resources was first formed, the staff consisted of approximately 30 employees, since divisions such as Exploration, Geoscience, Operations and Accounting were outsourced. Because there were not many employees, costs such as courier service, express delivery, office supplies, copy service, etc. were all charged to a one company-wide “General & Administrative (G&A)” account. Costs were minimal and always within budget. Recently, a meeting was held between the Office Administrator and the Chief Accounting Officer to compare last year’s budget to this year’s budget. In the meeting, the main question was why these particular areas were so significantly over budget. Courier service alone was over budget by 500%! Other areas like express delivery and copying, there was an increase of over 100%. Bringing all teams in-house meant bringing the expenses along with them. It was unbeknownst to the existing managers just how much was spent in these particular areas as those costs were never defined in the invoices from the consulting teams. In the first year as a complete company, there was no way to project just how high these charges would end up being. Since there was no quarterly monitoring in any of these areas, serious research would need to be conducted to find out exactly why increase in these areas was so high. The objective was to look at where the spending occurred, who/what group was responsible for the costs and what those average costs were. They agreed to regroup in a couple of weeks to present their proposed solutions to better budgeting in the future. There are several levels where questions are being asked here.

The main question Senior Management has is: How do we resolve what appears to be overspending in areas such as courier service, express delivery, copy service and office supplies? In some areas, spending has increased by 500% and the lowest increase is over 100%.