Module 7:

Responsible use of equipment and materials

7.1 The importance of acting responsibly

7.1.4 Efficiency

1 Using equipment efficiently helps towards making best use of often limited staffing.

Equipment settings should be adjusted to ensure it is not overloaded, straining the power unit or increasing the likelihood of a malfunction or damage to the equipment occurring.

Operating equipment beyond its safe optimum capacity can often increase the potential for accidents to happen.

Efficient use reduces excess wear on the machine and any attached implements and helps towards maintaining any guarantees or warranties.

2 Efficiency

The achievement of a desired outcome with a minimum of resource use and effort. Minimising the wastage of resources is an important aspect of efficiency. This is often measured and represented as a ratio to indicate how close the activity is to an ideal optimum.

Within grounds management the ratio is often expressed as Total inputs ÷ Useful output. Typically, this might be to determine how much effort (in maintenance hour of input) is, or has been, required to provide for 1 hour or 1 game of a sporting activity.

Efficient processes are often better achieved with experienced and skilled operators, often being further enhanced by appropriate training and qualifications.

3 Properly maintained and serviced equipment also contributes to reduced breakdowns and reducing the non-availability of the item. Where work must be carried out, but equipment is out of action for example through poor use or maintenance, then other equipment will either have to be redeployed from elsewhere or hired in: All of which impacts on other workloads and increased costs. It can also reduce standards elsewhere (albeit temporarily) due to equipment having to be redeployed.

4 Try and make connections between the efficiency of your efforts and outcomes, as well as any likely pollution (whether to soil, water, or the air) that could arise from inefficient actions. This process can also help to improve your critical thinking skills.

5 In some ways the production of a football pitch could be compared with that of baking a cake. You might know and have all the ingredients (which would be the equipment, staffing and materials) but if they are applied at the wrong time and the oven is not at the correct temperature, or the cake left in for too little or too long, then the outcome will be unsatisfactory. Basically, this will be an inefficient and ineffective outcome from your efforts, meaning a partial or total waste of time and money.

Module progress: 20%

7 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.5