Samantha Taylor:
Welcome to the Amigo CartCast, the podcast where we roll through the ins and outs of material handling with Amigo Carts. I’m your host, Samantha Taylor, here with my co-host Scott Chappell, and we’re on a mission to find a better way for material handling.

Scott Chappell:
Thank you, Samantha. Each episode will explore the innovative features, success stories and the endless possibilities that Amigo material handling carts bring to the table. Let’s roll into a world of efficiency, innovation and endless possibilities. This is the Amigo CartCast.

Samantha Taylor:
Welcome to another episode of the Amigo CartCast. Today we’re going to talk about the unsung hero in pretty much any organization. And what we’re going to talk about is specifically maintenance. Maintenance workers, maintenance crew. So I have Scott here who’s going to help kind of guide this story and share some solutions on what we’ve seen. But, Scott, I want you to open it up and tell me what you’ve seen in facilities when you’re out traveling and doing demos.
What currently does that maintenance application look like?

Scott Chappell:
So, you know, it just depends on the size of the facility. There are facilities that are smaller that people walk and push their toolboxes around in. There are facilities where people use golf carts. There are facilities where folks use larger equipment like a Taylor Dunn, which is kind of like a sit down four wheel, kind of a mini car.
And then there’s a lot of facilities, even in 2024 that are using tricycles for their maintenance staff. They have a basket on them. So that’s what they carry their tools in.

Samantha Taylor:
What about a unicycle? Have you ever seen that?

Scott Chappell:
If you could get the unicycle past safety. I sure we could probably do it.

Samantha Taylor:
Sure, sure.

Scott Chappell:
A unicycle. Really?

Samantha Taylor:
Well, I’m just trying to picture of all the different applications, there’s so many variety ways to make sure that your maintenance crew is working efficiently, and it’s a very necessary part of any organization. You think of, you know, you look at a manufacturer setting and they need to get equipment fixed. Well, who’s going to do that other than maybe the equipment specialists or the maintenance crew?

And they have to be able to efficiently carry their tools around and get there quickly. So I was just thinking maybe they’re in the circus and they ride unicycles? I don’t know.

Scott Chappell:
Well, it’s funny you mention that, because when it comes to maintenance, I think you are right. When you said unsung. And I think everybody assumes in a facility that it’s just somebody going to fix it, right? Like whether it’s I.T. and my computer doesn’t work right. And even though it’s been down for 3 minutes, it seems like it’s 30 minutes.

So when you say maintenance, it could be… I think there’s two sides of that. There are maintenance people that handle the building. And then there’s maintenance people that are trying to repair a machine that’s manufacturing something that shuts down their production line. So I think any way you slice it, those folks probably have to get around fairly fast or faster than just walking.
And I think that’s where maybe our products could help.

Samantha Taylor:
Yeah, I think that there’s probably a couple scenarios that you could share of where we’ve seen not only what the problem is, but how we’ve been able to create a solution for that specific workforce.

Scott Chappell:
I guess how I wanted to start off with is, is products, right? And not that we’re here to try to sell products, but what we’ve seen when we’re out, when we’re demonstrating, and that is bigger products, heavier products, tricycles, and then that’s where our products could be an alternative.

Now, let me just mention a couple of things. Bigger products are more expensive.
Tricycles, believe it or not, I’ve been told could be 12-1500 dollars for tricycle, which seems like a lot. But the other thing about tricycles are they have, a lot of them have air tires. And not only are the maintenance people fixing everything in the building, but they’re replacing tubes and tires and this is just what people tell us.

It’s when we go in, they go, “Hey, by the way, this is what we use. And it’s a pain in our butt if it’s not working properly.”

Samantha Taylor:
All right. So, Scott, you shared some of the different applications or products that you’ve seen out there. But before we even maybe discuss that further, I want to talk about the individuals who are using them. This doesn’t sound aging to me, but if you look up the average age for a maintenance application, it’s 45. So you start thinking about to that it’s a very physical and strenuous job in most cases.

And if they have been doing that for their entire career, you want to also think about what is some satisfaction, what is their satisfaction in their job and what they’re doing. And it’s important to make sure that they are able to move their product or their tools around efficiently and get to different places to do their job as it requires and not feel drained.
So I know you’ve been in a variety of facilities. Can you share, I guess, what you see, not only you shared a little bit of the products, but maybe the type of people that are using them. And what is your recommendation in that case?

Scott Chappell:
So it’s funny you mention that, because I guess that what I want to kind of say before we get there is these are just things we see we don’t know this until we go in the back door and we actually see what a facility looks like. So whether it’s 200,000 or 500,000 or believe it or not, a million square feet, the larger facility you get into, normally, the more steps people take and possibly the more expensive equipment that they buy.

Scott Chappell:
So in those specific cases, you have sometimes maintenance folks that are just pushing tool carts around. So you can imagine the…

Samantha Taylor:
Tools are heavy. You get a workout in.

Scott Chappell:
And I will tell you, they say toolboxes sometimes, they’re on wheels, of course, but they’re like three to five hundred pounds. That’s a lot. So you take a three to five hundred pound toolbox and you’ve got to push it, even if it’s you know, we always throw these big numbers around, even if it’s 100,000.
That’s probably a pretty big area, right? That’s a lot of steps. I’ve been in facilities where people say our maintenance folks walk 30,000 steps a day. Now there’s going to be people listening to this podcast that go, “Man, great. They’re going to stay in great shape.” I get that. But the other side, and people tell us this, is that their employees get fatigued.

They’re probably not so happy on a hot day that they have to walk 30,000 steps, right? So there are some…

Samantha Taylor:
With 300 pounds.

Scott Chappell:
Pushing three to five hundred pounds. Exactly. And then the other side. So there’s some satisfaction there. And the other side of that is it’s just an efficiency thing. So, for example, if one corner to the other corner is a six minute walk, how can we make that walk quicker and less steps for that worker? The other thing is when people forget tools, now, you would think a maintenance person knows exactly what they’re doing, where they’re doing and all that, and I’m sure they do.
But what happens if they need another tool and their shop is in the far southeast corner of the facility? Now they’ve got to go back. When they go back, how long does that take? Do they stop, get a cup of coffee? Do they talk…

Samantha Taylor:
Take a bathroom break because they just had coffee.

Scott Chappell:
There you go. Do they talk to a buddy about yesterday’s game? The playoffs? Hopefully people that are listening kind of go shake their head. “Yeah,” you know, “we see that.” So it’s possible our products could make that whole process smoother, more efficient, easier on the employee, and less costly for the facility.

Samantha Taylor:
And think about to one of our previous episodes with Tim, we talked about employee satisfaction and retention specifically, and this kind of ties in nicely when you think about the maintenance work and what these individuals are doing. It’s important to, you know, make sure that they’re getting to their job efficiently and long term. I would think that that translates to employee retention because they’re going to be able to move those heavy tools around and not, to your point, like on a hot day, feel like it’s totally burnt out from what they have to do.

So I think it kind of all ties in really nicely to just employee satisfaction in general.

Scott Chappell:
I think if you’re a maintenance person, there are a couple of different things at play here. One is maybe the physical toll it takes on you. I think the other thing is, and I believe everybody’s going to say this, when something breaks, somebody’s not happy. So who bears the brunt of that? It might be the maintenance person.

Samantha Taylor:
They have to do it with a smile.

Scott Chappell:
So not only are they huffing and puffing, now they’ve got unhappy people and they’re left. I have no idea what the retention is of maintenance people. And if we Google that…

Samantha Taylor:
Should we Google it?

Scott Chappell:
I don’t know. We may need to do it, but I’m just saying I don’t know what the retention is. So once again, this might be a small, inexpensive way to improve satisfaction and efficiency. I don’t know the polite way to say it, but do you pay people to walk or do you pay people to work?
And I just think if you look at it that way, these larger facilities with their maintenance folks, they’re just going to try to find a better way for them to do their job.

Samantha Taylor:
I don’t know, Scott, you’re sounding kind of high maintenance.

Scott Chappell:
I thought the only high-maintenance one here was you.

Samantha Taylor:
Oh!

Scott Chappell:
So through some of these facilities that we’ve been in, we go in and they throw things at us like, “We’ve got a 65-year-old maintenance person that just came back from a hip replacement or a knee replacement, and we want to help them get around easier.” They look at our products as an inexpensive way that might get Joe or John or Bill or Susie…

Samantha Taylor:
Or Susie! Yes, thank you. Mind reader.

Scott Chappell:
I was thinking that, too! From A to B quicker and get them back to work. That’s one thing. The other side of that is they have a specific application. So, for example, they do fire extinguisher preventative maintenance. And until I heard this story, I’m thinking, what’s the big deal about that? Well, all of those fire extinguishers have to be checked because they have to be up to date to be used in case of a fire.

Samantha Taylor:
It’s important.

Scott Chappell:
I know in our facility we’ve got over a hundred, and we’re not that big. So you can imagine if you have 750,000, 500,000 square feet. So we had a customer reach out and say, we want to use a product to zip right to every fire extinguisher and get it done. I don’t know what their maintenance schedule is.
If they have to do it monthly, weekly, quarterly or whatever it is there. And then we’ve actually had people that say, “We want to put our maintenance folks’ toolboxes on some kind of a motorized cart.” And then that’s where some of our other products come into play as well.

Samantha Taylor:
And I have heard, too, specifically with our products, because they are so user-friendly. So I know sometimes, depending on the size of the facility, you don’t always have the same person using the cart. It could be a variety of users, and you want to make sure that the training is very easy and it’s easy to use so that basically anybody could either ride it or use our Max Pro, which is the push behind for this application.

Scott Chappell:
Most definitely. And you know, how simple and easy is it to use these products? That’s kind of why we’ve created a stand-up product because you’re on and you’re off that fast. It’s about two and a half inches off the ground. It might not sound like a lot to a lot of people, but if you’re sitting and you’ve got to stand and then sit and move and go somewhere else, another ten, 20 feet and stand again, that does take some toll on folks. So the ease of use—forward and backward, on and off—those are just some nice things that our products do that play into this.

Samantha Taylor:
And sometimes you don’t really think about it until the solution is put right in front of you. We were very intentional with that design of standing for that on-off ease application. Also, from a safety standpoint, being able to have a clear sight view no matter the size of the facility is important. You’re not sitting, you’re not low to the ground. You can see your surroundings. We offer other safety features as well. I think that’s important. So what would you recommend if somebody wants to see our product and hear our solutions? Where should they go to get that information?

Scott Chappell:
Well, they’ve got a couple of different things they can do. They could hit our website and send us a quick note, but we sell these products through local distribution, local dealers. So the nice thing about that is if they’ve got other industrial equipment in their facility, they can get a hold of whoever they have a relationship with and just say, “Hey, we’d like to see these Amigo material handling carts. Can we get an onsite demo?” Now, our Amigo Roadshow is definitely the way we love to show our products because we’ll bring them to a facility and show multiple people how they all work. Normally, you kind of get a bunch of people that start asking questions, and you never know where it’s going to end up.

Samantha Taylor:
Yeah, I love that, Scott. I would love to hear, before we go, if you have a specific…

Scott Chappell:
Are you kidding me? You’re going to have me…

Samantha Taylor:
Talk again.

Scott Chappell:
Have another story?

Samantha Taylor:
Another story. I want to hear a specific application on your favorite, if you can narrow it down to one, of your maintenance applications for our Amigo material handling carts.

Scott Chappell:
So many. I would just tell you there is a company on the East Coast and they do skin care, hair care, all those kinds of products.

Samantha Taylor:
Oh, right up my alley!

Scott Chappell:
And your hair looks lovely today.

Samantha Taylor:
Thank you.

Scott Chappell:
You’re welcome. But what they had is they had a facility that was 5 to 700,000 square feet and they were looking—once again, we don’t know everything that goes on in there, but it was employee satisfaction. If they had somebody that just wasn’t getting around or what. But they were looking for another way for their maintenance folks to move their toolboxes around.

So they sent us a picture, which is great because a picture is worth a thousand words. And on the picture, they had our Dex Pro+, and on the back of that machine, there’s a trailer. It’s a 30 by 50 trailer. On the trailer, they had a toolbox mounted, they had totes, they had actual tools, wrenches, and Allen wrenches for all you folks that know that out there.

But they had Allen wrenches that were hanging off our bars that they actually made these brackets for. So the beautiful thing about it was they had a need, they had an application. They looked at our products and they felt it was a solution. They bought one and then they fitted it up with all the tools, all the totes, all of the boxes on it. In this large facility. And they didn’t only buy one, but they ended up buying two more after that, specifically for their maintenance folks.

Now, let me just… one last little tidbit is every major trade show we go to, this company’s people come to our booth and they always, always stop and say hi. And we ask them, how is it going? And they go, It’s great. It’s working well. So once again, a company out there that had an application, we ended up having the solution. It worked well. They bought more. And you know, another satisfied customer.

Samantha Taylor:
Scott, that story sounds really cool. You know what would make it even better? If we could share with our listeners that picture. Do you think you have one?

Scott Chappell:
We have it. I don’t believe, Samantha, we can share names. But there’s no name on this picture. But it’s definitely… once they see it, they will get it because it shows everything I just mentioned.

Samantha Taylor:
Fantastic. So we’ll put that up on our podcast web page so our listeners can take a look at it.

Scott Chappell:
Perfect. I didn’t know we could do that.

Samantha Taylor:
Our producer does everything.

Scott Chappell:
I gotcha. Okay, good.

Samantha Taylor:
In conclusion, I think we need a big shout out to our unsung heroes, our maintenance folks. Thank you for all that you do. Scott, thank you for sharing this information. And kind of how the Amigo material handling carts maybe can fit into different applications. And thank you all for listening to this episode of The Amigo CartCast.

Samantha Taylor:
Until next time. Keep it rolling.

Scott Chappell:
Keep it rolling.

Samantha Taylor:
And that wraps up another episode of The Amigo CartCast. We hope you enjoy this exploration into finding a better way for material handling with Amigo carts. Be sure to subscribe as well as go to myamigo.com/podcast to see pictures and videos mentioned in today’s episode.

Scott Chappell:
Thank you for tuning in. And until next time, keep rolling with Amigo.

Samantha Taylor:
Until next time.

Scott Chappell:
Keep it rolling.

Samantha Taylor:
Keep it rolling.