RM Book

This simple book can save you thousands

A few weeks ago, I mentioned making up a GM (General Maintenance) book as a tool to remind you of all the things that need to be done in your brewery each month. The RM book, on the other hand, is all about repair and maintenance. When you have one of these bad boys in your office, you will save yourself potentially thousands of repair and maintenance dollars per year.

When I think back on how much I have spent on repair and maintenance through the years, the money spent could have built another brewery. A good chunk of this expense could have been avoided, if at the time I had kept an RM Book. But one often learns the hard way.

Get a simple three ring binder and divide it into sections. One section is your POS system. Another is refrigeration. Then plumbing, electrical, internet, glycol system, boiler, canning machine, heck, anything that gets repaired in you’re business.

Here is an example of how you build the book.

Let’s say your refrigerated reach-in table is not cooling. The page would look like this.

PROBLEM: cooler not cooling

Is there power?

No? Check breaker. Check to see if there is power to plug.

Click breaker back on. If plug is GFI, reset, or look for another GFI it may be tied into and has been tripped.

Yes? Check condenser. Clogged? Frozen?

Defrost condenser overnight. Clean condenser coils.

If problem persists, call refrigeration repair person.

Follow this pattern with other potential break-downs. If the POS system isn’t functioning it could be the internet is down. If the internet is down it could be that the router needs to be re-booted. Is there a back up solution using hand-written tickets?

The RM book is just one part of an overall excellent system that runs your business instead of all aspects of your brewery relying on YOU. If you are away camping for the weekend, and a reach in cooler stops cooling, what will your manager do?

One scenario is they call a refrigeration person who comes out (on a weekend at weekend rates) and discovers the reach in is in fact plugged in, but that GFI plug is tied to another GFI that has tripped. He clicks that one back on, hands a hefty bill to the manager and leaves. By the way, if you doubt this, ask any electrician if they have ever shown up to a house only to find a breaker has tripped.

The other scenario is that a cook complains that the reach in is not working, so the manager goes to the RM book, looks up refrigeration, and then goes through the steps until she finds the problem and corrects it. She is a hero. You, on your camping trip are saved $150.

This book is built over time. When you cannot fix something and you call in a professional, use this as a teaching moment. If the repair was something you could have done, learn how it was repaired and add it to your RM book.

I wish I would have developed a book like this when I started. It’s too late for me now. Save yourself -some money - and build an RM book!