Location: Tampa, FL
Industry: Construction
Fleet size: 48 Trucks & 300 pieces of equipment
The Kimmins Contracting Corporation has been serving industrial and commercial construction clients since its founding by William Kimmins in 1923. In 1973 the Williams Group and Kimmins combined to offer demolition contracting services to the industrial community. In the 1980s Kimmins relocated their company headquarters to Tampa, Florida, where they still reside today. In 1991 Kimmins expanded again to form the Earthwork and Mine Service Group, providing earth moving equipment and services to Florida’s phosphate industry.
In 2002 Kimmins was on the leading edge of the new millennia’s green construction movement when they opened their stone and aggregate crushing and recycling operation. Kimmins’ turnkey services include:
– Industrial demolition
– Commercial and residential demolition
– Selective demolition
– Tank decommissioning
– Asset recovery and recycling
– Hazardous material removal
– Design-build projects
– Earthwork
– Civil sites and utilities
Kimmins has an impressive array of diverse industrial projects under their belt, ranging from repairing runways at MacDill Air Force Base to expanding the Hard Rock Casino for Florida’s Seminole tribe. They are now a much sought after partner for comprehensive design-build projects, industrial demolition, and civil construction.
The Paper-Based Nightmare at Kimmins
Frank Inturrisi is the operations manager shouldering the responsibility for Kimmins’ fleet of 48 vehicles and 300 pieces of heavy construction equipment. Like many fleet managers who turn to the Whip Around digital solution, Frank found himself dealing with a paper-based administrative nightmare. “I’ve got 6 of the biggest boxes full of paper and I wouldn’t have a clue where to find anything but we have to keep inspections for 3 years.”
Frank sets the Kimmins fleet operations standards pretty high, measuring success at nothing less than 100% DOT compliant, with all vehicles online as close to 100% of the time as possible. The company owns 75% of assets with about 25% leased, with many of those in lease-to-purchase deals. Like many enterprises in the heavy industrial sector, Kimmins reports that vehicles being offline and out of action is their “biggest revenue killer”. Drivers can’t work, and machinery can’t be transported.
The construction industry has traditionally been resistant to digital technology, lagging behind other sectors which quickly embraced the benefits of the digital age to cut costs, boost productivity, and increase revenue. Frank ran into some of that resistance at Kimmins, reminding us that “Drivers and staff are always skeptical around anything new or change.” But confronted with the demanding maintenance challenges combined with mountains of paper generated by DOT archiving requirements, Frank knew that it was time for an upgrade.
The Whip Around Solution at Kimmins
DOT compliance is the dominating factor driving companies to seek the Whip Around solution. DVIR (Daily Vehicle Inspection Report) archiving demands required by the DOT can quickly drown an enterprise in a sea of paperwork, and the larger the fleet size the more burdensome the paper-based DVIR administration and storage becomes. Operations manager Frank Inturrisi, like many others in his position, is largely focused on compliance and safety, and he’s found that Whip Around has enhanced both at Kimmins Contracting Corporation.
With Whip Around, inspections at Kimmins commence at 6 AM. The ops teams are in place around 7:30 AM. To create a robust inspection and maintenance program, Frank uses the vehicle inspection times as the timestamps for calculating the hours worked by each driver. Kimmin’s in-house mechanic also endorsed the streamlined WA process explaining, “All in all I really like this, it makes my job easier without all the paperwork”.
Kimmins drivers are adapting to the new Whip Around approach as well. There is a learning curve as the company makes the transition from cumbersome paperwork to smartphone convenience, but many drivers have already discovered the advantages of WA technology. Frank summed up the transition at Kimmins for us saying, “The tech-savvy drivers always take photos and it’s great but some don’t as they don’t understand how it helps them showing that there’s something wrong. We’ve had drivers who love it from day 1 and we’ve had drivers who don’t like it at first but soon change their tune.”
As Kimmins operations manager Frank Inturrisi realizes that Kimmins needs to incorporate more technology across the business as the construction industry catches up in the smart digital age of Industrial 4.0. In that spirit Kimmins also recently implemented Trackabout, but performance wasn’t quite up to the Whip Around standard. Frank said about the intuitive Whip Around solution, “I love the simplicity.”
“All in all I really like this, it makes my job a lot easier without all the paperwork”, said a Kimmins’ Inhouse Mechanic
Discovering Whip Around
Kimmins Contracting discovered the Whip Around solution to their paperwork nightmare when our man Albert (A.W.) Ross reached out to Frank. At the time Frank mentioned that Kimmins was focused on DOT compliance and safety issues and that he hated the administrative burdens caused by all the paperwork. Ironically, Frank wasn’t actively seeking a digital solution to his DOT compliance problems at the time but he recalls, “As soon as I checked it out (Whip Around) and Albert was great. We got along and I knew we were onto a winner.”
Frank Inturrisi and Kimmins Contracting are joining the satisfied ranks of operations and fleet managers in industries across the board, all of whom have embraced the streamlined inspection solutions that Whip Around brings to the table. With Whip Around, smartphone technology and convenience lets you take control of the cumbersome DVIR process in a way that enhances a robust maintenance program which drastically reduces fleet downtime. With the Whip Around mobile app, your drivers can conduct vehicle inspections anytime, anywhere. That means that they can flag faults in real time, and forward details to your maintenance teams with photos and comments.
For fleet managers, the Whip Around custom form builder allows you to build powerful inspection forms tailored to your fleet’s specific operational and maintenance needs. Current paper checklists or Excel spreadsheets can be converted to mobile inspection forms in minutes. Each driver has his own individual login so you can track who has conducted an inspection automatically, complete with automated time, date, and GPS stamping. DVIRs are managed with ease, and faults can be forwarded to in-house mechanics or external teams for leased vehicles to optimize timely repairs and reduce costly vehicle downtime.
“The tech-savvy drivers always take photos and it’s great but some don’t as they don’t understand how it helps them showing that there’s something wrong. We’ve had drivers who love it from day 1 and we’ve had drivers who don’t like it at first but soon change their tune.”, said Frank Inturrisi, Operations Manager, Kimmins, Tampa, FL
