Team Clean looks to significantly reduce maintenance
costs for snow plows

The winter season at ITD means longer hours for operators, more pressure from the public, and a never-ending effort to keep snow-removal equipment on the road.

Each storm inevitably sends snow plows to the maintenance shop, despite the efforts of operators to keep them on the highways.

After each shift, operators would ideally clean their trucks, using water to reach all of the crevices that salt will corrode if left there. However, wrangling a hose to reach all of those places can be difficult and tiresome after an eight-hour (plus) shift.

But when trucks aren’t thoroughly washed, their constant exposure to salt leads to rusting, which increases maintenance costs and shortens the life of equipment.

Lonnie Crume from D2 operations understood this and pioneered an idea that recently gained traction through the Leadership Summit.

VIDEO: Check out the frame-flusher process.

Crume and other members of Team Clean presented their case at the recent Leadership Summit: set aside two employees and two hours to use $150 worth of materials to install a frame-mounted washing system on a truck's axles before converting it for winter operations.

The frame-mounted washing system is a network of plastic pipe filled with holes and zip tied to the truck. Though the team is still perfecting the technique with installations on D2 trucks, the idea is that an operator can simply hook up a hose to the truck, turn the “sprinklers” on and let it be while attending to other duties.

Not only does it make the cleaning process easier, it’s more effective and may cut maintenance costs by as much as 20%.

Team Clean is hoping these savings will be shared by other districts—reach out to them if you’d like to see these savings come to your district.  

Published 11-23-18