The real Coy

Coy Jackson has worked for Ranger Boats for 26 years. In that time he has worked his way from mechanic to manager of Ranger’s entire maintenance department. He has also helped the company grow from one building to multiple plants and warehouses sprawling over 40 acres, with some 500,000 square feet under roof.

Jackson’s maintenance staff itself is lean, comprising just five maintenance specialists who focus on critical HVAC, electrical, pumps and motors, sprayers, drilling, cutting and welding systems.

“We have a lot of spray equipment here, so most of our daily maintenance work involves some kind of spray equipment, usually a pump that we’ll have to rebuild, a seal to replace, things like that,” Jackson says.

In recent years, Jackson’s staff has been working on vendor consolidation to improve equipment interchangeability and reduce spare part inventories.

“With our application equipment, we try to go with primarily Magnum Venus so the pumps are interchangeable and we can do quick change-outs that won’t cost much downtime,” he says. “By using the same vendor, we’re able to troubleshoot and have parts available for just about everything while stocking fewer parts overall.”

Being a subsidiary company of Genmar Holdings, which owns marine manufacturers including Carver Yachts, Champion and Stratos Boats, also allows Jackson’s department the luxury of corporate purchasing program discounts on MRO tools and supplies.

“We focus on Square D products for our electrical needs,” he adds. “We use a couple of vendors for air tools and recently we have been looking on line.”

After decades with a paper-based work order system, Jackson and his staff are now populating a new CMMS with asset information. He expects the asset inventory to be done in six months.

Rangers lean initiatives are joint projects by maintenance and operations. Converting buildings to air conditioning is one example. “We just put six air conditioning units in our finish facility and removed 88 fans, which used a lot more power than air conditioning units. And we get a better work environment; you don’t have the noise or frayed cords — there are all kinds of advantages. We’re applying Lean tools in every area where we build or renovate.”

This article appeared in the August/September 2007 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2007.

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