How do you not lose your mind?

Silas Pradetto

Silas Pradetto

Graduate Student
Jan 11, 2011
2,130
1
0
Land of Steady Habits
www.concertsunlimited.com
Business has been extremely good lately, perhaps that's why I barely get around to posting anymore (who's complaining about that, anyway :lol:). With business being so good, I have a new problem: organization. This weekend, we had 6 shows, plus some rentals coming in and going out, and it's getting to be a major task just to keep track of what is where and when.

How do the big shops handle this, beyond some fancy barcode inventory system? Especially when two shows come back Friday night at 2am, and that gear has to be reloaded into other trucks for different shows the next day?

So far I just make out 'pack lists' and identify what loads will be incomplete until the trucks come back and everything switches, but I know there's gotta be an established way to do this. It's just a matter of time before I forget to load something important, like a console.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

The bigger shops are doing pretty much that. Fancy barcode system, that's not actually so fancy. Inventory management, with pack lists for each truck. Gear comes in, it's all checked before going out again. All cables cleaned, all stands tightened, speakers tested with their amps.

I don't recall the company that makes them- but there are some great (expensive) weather and abuse proof barcode stickers out there. Scan gear when it comes off the truck, and when it goes back on. Barcodes are just something to make it easier- they're not a necessity. But when paying hourly for shop labor, it saves on time.

Two of the larger houses I'll work with are using Filemaker for inventory / show management. Categorized by type of gear- consoles, speakers, mics, support, etc. You take a set amount of boxes for some line array, and a set amount of support gets pulled aside automatically to go with. Both systems (I assume custom) get the same job done in two very different ways.

But when moving gear between trucks at 4am, that sort of stuff doesn't really happen. There'll be a pack list, but everyone is too tired to bother scanning everyone in so late. It generally will turn to a paper checklist for the pack, all prepared ahead of time. I think the key thing with all of it is just early preparation.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

David Karol said:
The bigger shops are doing pretty much that. Fancy barcode system, that's not actually so fancy. Inventory management, with pack lists for each truck. Gear comes in, it's all checked before going out again. All cables cleaned, all stands tightened, speakers tested with their amps.
Click to expand...

And the key to making this all work is having enough gear and shop labor to avoid having to take gear directly from one gig to the next without having it prepped by the shop first. (Yes, there is the occasional exception, but it's the exception.) Also makes for a less stressful gig, because you know everything worked when it left the shop.

The other, older, approach is to have N complete systems (packages) that never get split up. So now you have only complete systems to keep track of, not all the pieces. But this approach doesn't scale as well, especially when dry hire is involved.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Rob Timmerman said:
And the key to making this all work is having enough gear and shop labor to avoid having to take gear directly from one gig to the next without having it prepped by the shop first. (Yes, there is the occasional exception, but it's the exception.) Also makes for a less stressful gig, because you know everything worked when it left the shop.

The other, older, approach is to have N complete systems (packages) that never get split up. So now you have only complete systems to keep track of, not all the pieces. But this approach doesn't scale as well, especially when dry hire is involved.
Click to expand...

Silas, you may be at the point where you need shop rats. You'll need to sell another $150,000 in work to pay for the FTE position, presuming he doesn't do anything but shop work, prep, testing, repairs, inventory control, shipping and receiving, etc. I include shop prep time when I work up show estimates, and I add extra time if we need to do gear swaps. I put it in the estimate so I can keep track of overhead, even if it doesn't get billed to a show.

We're in a similar situation - more inventory to keep track of, dry hires shipping back and forth, new help on shows. Inventory control/asset management is on my list of stuff...
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Tim McCulloch said:
Silas, you may be at the point where you need shop rats. You'll need to sell another $150,000 in work to pay for the FTE position, presuming he doesn't do anything but shop work, prep, testing, repairs, inventory control, shipping and receiving, etc. I include shop prep time when I work up show estimates, and I add extra time if we need to do gear swaps. I put it in the estimate so I can keep track of overhead, even if it doesn't get billed to a show.

We're in a similar situation - more inventory to keep track of, dry hires shipping back and forth, new help on shows. Inventory control/asset management is on my list of stuff...
Click to expand...

I have shop labor already, though only part-time right now. Waiting to find the right person to go full-time.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

We use HireTrack, which is clunky but does keep track of everything. Even items on the repair shelf are tracked so that we know what's really and truly available. We don't use barcode scanners, though. For us it's all paper on the shop floor, a pull/prep list when a show or rental is being assembled, and a return list when it comes back. Obviously hand entry generates errors, but it is still plenty effective.

This does make gear turns between jobs a lot easier - the available gear is all pulled and signed for, and then the last pieces are easy to identify. Items taken from the previous job are signed for on the return sheet so that we know they did come back. We do mostly rentals so we have to be extra careful about tracking everything accurately.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Rob Timmerman said:
And the key to making this all work is having enough gear and shop labor to avoid having to take gear directly from one gig to the next without having it prepped by the shop first. (Yes, there is the occasional exception, but it's the exception.) Also makes for a less stressful gig, because you know everything worked when it left the shop.

The other, older, approach is to have N complete systems (packages) that never get split up. So now you have only complete systems to keep track of, not all the pieces. But this approach doesn't scale as well, especially when dry hire is involved.
Click to expand...

Also, there are some shops that are scanning everything down to an IEC cable for the console. But at the larger shops I've worked in, every case gets dumped and put back together every time it comes back to the shop. Stands, cable trunks, work boxes, etc. Each of those will have set things that go in them, that generally will stay the same show to show.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

RFID is the way to go. It helps to have competent labor in the shop that knows how many power supply cables you need in your console PSU rack, etc. It's probably a bad idea to track every detail individually, but having RFID on all the main pieces, but not the power cables for them, would be great. If it comes off the truck it p[asses through the device that scans it in and vice versa. Does anyone make it? IDK
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Well, go ahead and count on losing your mind, but trust me, it'll be okay...:o))

We've been in that boat for a few years now, with more shows, more gear, more transferring overnight, and the periods of time this crazy stuff going on getting longer and longer.

The office is taking care of personnel and business. I'm nearly single-handedly handling logistics (but with good help getting the trucks loaded and unloaded. Several years ago, I made an Excel sheet of literally everything we own. There's a large one that includes audio, lighting, backline, everything. I have that file split into two sheets being audio and lighting separately. I still do shows, but it's not hurting my feelings slowing down to be more of an operations and logistics guy (at 55, it's kind of a welcome change, actually). I spend Mondays, or as early as possible literally choreographing the really heavy weeks and making the show loads (all the while checking in gear and prepping for the next event). And try as we might, we do have to shuffle some gear from time to time. Once, I realized early on that I had booked a console on two shows, so I made a "load matrix" of sorts that I use to tell me what's booked where and what's available. I also use these lists to check in gear and see what might be missing from the original pack.

I'm not proud of this system. It's terribly clumsy, time-consuming and wasteful. While it is working, I absolutely MUST get a better, more efficient system of doing this. It's just grown and grown to being nearly out of hand for the way we are doing things. Not to mention using an unholy amount of printing paper and printer ink. This fall WILL BE the year that we develop a system for booking gear for events and dry rentals, having a program that shows what's available and what's not, and a barcode system of checking gear in and out of a truck pack. My single biggest issue is the office not being aware of what's booked and available and booking something that I need on a show or is already checked out and gone.

The inventory control and show load and prep is a topic that's been asked more times than I can remember (and me doing some of the asking). There's doesn't seem to be a system that is good for the mid-size regional house. It's like we go from what I'm doing to the other extreme, turning over our lives to a gargantuan expensive system that encompasses accounting, booking, inventory, trucking, and personnel. I keep hearing of Filemaker Pro systems in use, but I can't find out a specific name of those files and I guess I'm looking at diving into the program and making my own. On the surface, it doesn't look too complicated, but I've already aborted two attempts to do so because of time constraints.

I love the idea of RFID tags on the gear and the arch to read the tags. Oh, yeah, who wouldn't?...until you see the price tag. OUCH.

Growing pains are a wonderful thing, if they don't kill you...:o))

Geri O
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Silas, I'd be inclined to call both Rentex and VER to see what database/inventory systems they use. Whenever we get stuff from either, they scan it out/in with an iOS device and even take signature authorization the same way.

Theoretically, your crew could scan everything in as it gets loaded on the truck from strike - before it gets back to the shop - and the shop crew could then figure out what gear needs to get swapped before the truck even gets back to the dock.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

harrybrilljr said:
RFID is the way to go. It helps to have competent labor in the shop that knows how many power supply cables you need in your console PSU rack, etc. It's probably a bad idea to track every detail individually, but having RFID on all the main pieces, but not the power cables for them, would be great. If it comes off the truck it p[asses through the device that scans it in and vice versa. Does anyone make it? IDK
Click to expand...


I know that rentalpoint can work with an RFID setup, as well as conventional barcodes. From memory the idea was to have a scanner on the warehouse door and then everything that went out the door was checked out. I don't have any personal experience with it though.

In my neck of the woods I hear about rentalpoint, hiretrack and R2 the most.

In practice I find the combination of having software that notifies you of crossovers from jobs, proper prep sheets and then case labels that can show contents/show/location (which can even be labelled to show the crossover) make the best out of a difficult situation.


Gareth
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

harrybrilljr said:
RFID is the way to go. It helps to have competent labor in the shop that knows how many power supply cables you need in your console PSU rack, etc. It's probably a bad idea to track every detail individually, but having RFID on all the main pieces, but not the power cables for them, would be great. If it comes off the truck it p[asses through the device that scans it in and vice versa. Does anyone make it? IDK
Click to expand...
On my annual packaging industry shows I can follow the RFID progress pretty well and I would say it's not the solution for rental shops (yet). You can have RFID in the big items, it works pretty well, but when it comes to single items within a package, it's useless. You would need at least a hand scanner in addition to the gate (to scan small items within packages) or you have to open the package in the shop to check for all items, like power cords. You still have to check the items for function. When you're at it, you can scan a barcode and save your money.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

A nice thing about the dedicated (and yes, expensive) systems is that they also let you generate quotes, keep track of what gear isn't being used, etc. We use it to quote (but not allocate) crew and transportation as well. Another nice thing which requires a fair bit of setup time is having specific pieces of gear remind you to include important parts - like sending a wireless system and the reminder list includes choice of antennas, lavs, etc.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Christian Tepfer said:
When you're at it, you can scan a barcode and save your money.
Click to expand...

A company I know (who are definitely Varsity-level) have spent over a year implementing an equipment management system. They went for 2D printed barcodes, which can be made small enough to put on things like microphones and XLRs without looking ugly. However the size meant that they needed relatively expensive barcode readers. They had decided that RFID was too expensive and fiddly to be worthwhile.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Silas Pradetto said:
How do the big shops handle this, beyond some fancy barcode inventory system?
Click to expand...

This, or generated pull sheets that are hand verified as each trunk is prepped.

My local large lighting house does the latter, and are in the market for an inventory system that will let them do a mixture of both barcodes and pull sheets, including perhaps a tablet solution for checking off pull sheets. They are in the same boat as you, but now trying to find a new platform to migrate to.

I think there is a market for the product, but it is too much of an undertaking to be a nights and weekends project.

If I was looking for a stopgap solution in this area, I would try building it around Trello (trello.com). Its collaborative, flexible, and powerful enough to at least make sure everyone knows what needs moved where.

Perhaps the underlying issue is the inherent logistics of the unload and turn process, compounded by tiredness after gigs.
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Wait, you haven't lost your mind yet? How are you even in this business? :lol:

With the way my company and person life is going, I haven't had a day off yet this year! Managing a business from the road makes it even more fun! I have on average 7 shows out every weekend, if not more! I have to deal with 4 separate aspects of my company every day:

1. The production side: Which gear has to be where? Oh, I only have 1 console available and I need 3? Time to hit up the friends and see who has something available. Wait, I'm in London, and it's only 5am at home. Guess I won't have an answer for a few hours.

I currently operate on the "I hope my engineers aren't idiots" system with gear. Everything is checked in & checked out at my shop. Engineers write down what they take with them to a gig, and write down what they bring back from a gig. I have a master inventory sheet and check in on all the gear once a month. Anything missing goes back to the last engineer to use the equipment. I've yet to lose anything, so I'm happy enough with this system for now. When I have multiple shows in a day, or weekend, it's a matter of sending out gear lists to each engineer to make sure they only take what they need.

2. Providing engineers for shows: Aside from my own "full production" shows, I also supply "house" engineers for 4 venues in the area. A challenge of it's own! I have a 'pool' of engineers that I send a spreadsheet out to weekly with the next month or so worth of shows. They pick which dates they can work, and hopefully it just fills up. But theres always the fun weeks when I have an open date and have to call everyone in town to find someone to do it!

3. Rentals! Luckily this side of things isn't too insanely busy, and I have a separate inventory just for rentals. Rentals is just a matter of having someone at the shop to have the gear checked in and out, and getting signatures.

4. Sales! I was smart & hired someone else to handle this aspect. And I'm just getting into it, so we'll see how it goes. :)


So yeah, I guess I'm just old school. I'd like to eventually pick up the barcode system, but for now, the good 'ol fashion way of manually checking things in and out seems to be working for me.



Evan
 
Re: How do you not lose your mind?

Geri you can improve what you have already by getting all that info from your spreadsheet into a database and including dates and times as part of it. When you pull gear for a specific time it becomes unavailable for that time to be pulled on another show. You would have to release it from one to get it into another. Filemaker is a MAC based database program. You have to write the software yourself using filemaker. Microsoft has a database in OFFICE Pro, I believe called ACCESS. If you have a Mac, Riley Casey probably has a very nice filemaker setup for you to try. I know I played with his files in 99 or 2000 and it was really nice and simple to use. Professionals that do this sort of programming get around $10k last I checked, but then it's done and it works for your business from then on.
You can always add new gear and such. Most all the AV companies I work for use their own software. It doesn't exist outside of their company. It pays for itself rather quickly. These systems are far more complicated than what you need because they often span hundreds of offices throughout the country and it's all networked.

Geri O'Neil said:
Well, go ahead and count on losing your mind, but trust me, it'll be okay...:o))

We've been in that boat for a few years now, with more shows, more gear, more transferring overnight, and the periods of time this crazy stuff going on getting longer and longer.

The office is taking care of personnel and business. I'm nearly single-handedly handling logistics (but with good help getting the trucks loaded and unloaded. Several years ago, I made an Excel sheet of literally everything we own. There's a large one that includes audio, lighting, backline, everything. I have that file split into two sheets being audio and lighting separately. I still do shows, but it's not hurting my feelings slowing down to be more of an operations and logistics guy (at 55, it's kind of a welcome change, actually). I spend Mondays, or as early as possible literally choreographing the really heavy weeks and making the show loads (all the while checking in gear and prepping for the next event). And try as we might, we do have to shuffle some gear from time to time. Once, I realized early on that I had booked a console on two shows, so I made a "load matrix" of sorts that I use to tell me what's booked where and what's available. I also use these lists to check in gear and see what might be missing from the original pack.

I'm not proud of this system. It's terribly clumsy, time-consuming and wasteful. While it is working, I absolutely MUST get a better, more efficient system of doing this. It's just grown and grown to being nearly out of hand for the way we are doing things. Not to mention using an unholy amount of printing paper and printer ink. This fall WILL BE the year that we develop a system for booking gear for events and dry rentals, having a program that shows what's available and what's not, and a barcode system of checking gear in and out of a truck pack. My single biggest issue is the office not being aware of what's booked and available and booking something that I need on a show or is already checked out and gone.

The inventory control and show load and prep is a topic that's been asked more times than I can remember (and me doing some of the asking). There's doesn't seem to be a system that is good for the mid-size regional house. It's like we go from what I'm doing to the other extreme, turning over our lives to a gargantuan expensive system that encompasses accounting, booking, inventory, trucking, and personnel. I keep hearing of Filemaker Pro systems in use, but I can't find out a specific name of those files and I guess I'm looking at diving into the program and making my own. On the surface, it doesn't look too complicated, but I've already aborted two attempts to do so because of time constraints.

I love the idea of RFID tags on the gear and the arch to read the tags. Oh, yeah, who wouldn't?...until you see the price tag. OUCH.

Growing pains are a wonderful thing, if they don't kill you...:o))

Geri O
Click to expand...
 
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