How long from when your tandem student arrives before they're on the plane?

[skypuppy 1]

At my dz we show them Bill Booth's tandem video, then they fill out the paper work, including a quiz, and register, after which we brief them on equipment and exits. I would say on a good day, by the time we've geared up, flown to altitude (10,500 by Cessna 182) and then landed and got their certificate, it's been 2 hours, at least.

On other days we may tend to get backed up (weather, packing, videographers, you name it). Then all bets are off.

What do other centres do to operate efficiently. Any way to speed up?

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[PhreeZone 15]

The single fastest way I ever saw a center putting up people was at Skydive Chicago in 2001. Thry had a large classroom that they did the intro ground work and waivers at in which thre were about 7-10 tandems in the room. They would gear everyone up and walk to the hanger. At about that time the Tandem Instructor was landing from the previous load. The TM would drop the gear, keep walking through the hanger and be introduced to his student while putting the next tandem rig on. Then they would walk out to the Otter that the TM had just exited from for the back to back. This would go opn all day.

The ground classes were about 10 minutes long and started like every 15 minutes or so.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

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[SkymonkeyONE 3]

It's at least that fast at CrossKeys too. At Raeford the speed in which we get people in the plane changes dramatically depending on how backed up, or in some case empty, the planes are. It's entirely possible to show them the video, have them fill out waivers, give them ground training, suit them up, and get them to the plane in half an hour or less. What makes it harder is when they don't make an appointment, don't show up on time for their appointment, show up in a huge group when we don't have sufficient instructor staff, or there is an issue with getting enough slots on the plane. It varies wildly.

Chuck

[Shark 0]

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What makes it harder is when they don't make an appointment, don't show up on time for their appointment, show up in a huge group when we don't have sufficient instructor staff, or there is an issue with getting enough slots on the plane. It varies wildly.

....and then they bitch and moan that their group of 20 cannot be all on the same aircraft.
At gear-time they usually have to pee; a 10 minute evolution for some.

[flyangel2 2]

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What do other centres do to operate efficiently. Any way to speed up?

It's all in the scheduling.

When I worked as an office manager, I had the JMs sign up in the schedule book at least a month out. I would then know how many JMs I had for the day and knew how many students I could schedule for the same day. (I also had my packers and video people sign up in the same book)

I understand weather holds, no one has any control over that. The important thing is to make sure manifest is communicating with the students/customers that are waiting around on a weather hold. Letting them know that as soon as the weather breaks they will resume operations.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[pchapman 262]

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At my dz we show them Bill Booth's tandem video, then they fill out the paper work, including a quiz, and register, after which we brief them on equipment and exits.

To expand on this (as I instruct at the same DZ), the students are actually shown 2 videos, one on the legal & waiver aspects, one on tandem jumping procedures in general. Together, that's 40 minutes.

Tandem exit procedures for a C-182 take a little more time to demonstrate and practice in the mockup. That's in comparison to relative ease of "getting up and walking out the door" for a large turbine a/c.

Tandems take more time at this DZ as tandem clients are treated more as students: they learn to check an altimeter & pull for themselves (although a pull-time altimeter check is prompted with taps to the left arm). Depending on the instructor, they may learn to wave off, or how to cooperate with the instructor on turns in freefall. One can debate it forever: there's stuff the slung meat doesn't NEED to be told, on the other hand, it is nice to go a little further and involve the client in the skydive.

One problem is that the extra time taken per student is difficult to turn into a competitive advantage. I'm not sure that this aspect is "sold" sufficiently on the web site or in phone conversations with prospective students.

[scrublink 0]

Do you track your tandem retention rate? How many come back for at least one more training jump? I am curious to find out that if the DZ spends more time with the student the first time, will it pay dividends in the form of students coming back and maybe staying in the sport.
If your DZ has a higher average return rate it would be a strong argument against the assembly line tandem factory operations at some DZs.

[packerkevin 0]

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Do you track your tandem retention rate? How many come back for at least one more training jump? ***************
I have found that since I started spending a little more time with each student, I am getting about a 10% return rate.

edited to repair my f'ed up spelling

Growing old is mandatory, Growing up is optional

• Quote

[WILDBILLAQR 0]

Of course you have an awsome coach training for you before you get your grubby paws on them

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"Thats not smoke, thats BUCKEYE!!"
AQR#3,CWR#49

[brettpobastad 0]

There are two schools of thought on this. Some instructors and dropzones take the five page waiver, two video registartion routine. And then the customer/passenger/student gets the 45 minute tandem first jump course including intro to back loops and packing lessons. Nothing wrong with this. It just takes a whole lot of time. And it's lost on 60 percent of 'em anyway. The other 40 percent it either scares or confuses.

Then there is the 'less is more' approach. Tell them only what they need to know and when they need to know it. You can always tell them more if you sense that they want or need more, or if you need to kill time because of weather or slow packers. You can't ever tell 'em any less, that's for sure!

Here's my training for a first tandem student:

"There's only three things you need to remember:"

"RULE NUMBER ONE -don't grab my hands."

"RULE NUMBER TWO -as soon as we leave the airplane, arch as best you can" (show 'em an arch and if you really want to kill some time, have them practice an arch)

"RULE NUMBER THREE (and most important) -smile and have fun."

I have been to and worked at a lot of dropzones and have seen the various approaches that are taken concerning tandems. Far and away, the most efficient and productive tandem operation is SKYDIVE SANTA BARBARA.

http://www.skydivesantabarbara.com/

The place is owned by Dave Hughes and used to be located in Paso Robles and called BLUE SKY ADVENTURES. It runs like clockwork. No movement or segment of time is wasted (but you don't have to rush!) As an instructor, you can do as many tandems as you can handle (but Dave will make sure you get a sandwich and a Coke!) He always has plenty of modern rigs that are well maintained. The packers and manifest personel are skilled, efficient and friendly. All the little details are taken care of (goggles and jumpsuits for the students, etc.) His booking system is efficent and accurate. If your told that there will be 27 tandems tommorow staring at at 8, you can pretty much count on 27 tandems starting at 8.

And believe it or not, this is all accomplised at a DZ where the landing area is separate from the rest of the operation, the primary aricraft used are smaller Cessna's and there are weather issues to deal with because of proximity to the ocean. And best of all, there is room for personal license and interpratation. Dave hires skilled people and let's them do their job. They crank out 2000 or so tandems a year but it never feels like a factory.

Honorable mention goes to Skydive Oregon and Kapowsin Airsports

"It's only arrogance if you can't back it up"

[Wool-E 0]

To improve efficiency at your DZ operation, it's conceptually simple: eliminate waste. See a group of students standing around doing nothing? That's waste (you're wasting your customers' time). Does your DZ make students walk all over the dropzone to fill out paperwork, get trained, gear up, watch the video, etc.? That's waste! See your instructors / packers / manifestors / etc. sitting around doing nothing? (cringe) that's waste! In the babe-magnet field of industrial engineering, the first scenario is an example of "Lead Time", the second is an example of travel time and the third is an example of "Idle" time. All of these are, of course, non-value-added waste. But that's just the tip of the iceburg, all dropzones, no matter how efficient they appear, have waste. There is always room for continuous improvement...the hard part is finding the waste!

But for starters, variation creates waste. "Getting the ball between the uprights" as far as tolerances go is not good enough. "But Woolly, why? If it meets specification it meets specification, right?" Not exactly….if you miss low, you're continuously providing a sub-par product / service and your customers will catch on to that. If you miss high, you're spending more money / time on the product than you need to...waste.

So eliminating variation will eliminate waste. SO WTF, HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO SKYDIVING?! Begin with standardization. Does your dropzone have a standard for teaching? If you think you do, watch your instructors. Does each TM (or AFF I / SL I / IAD I for that matter) each exactly the same stuff in exactly the same sequence? Write Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's) for the different work tasks at your operation and make the instructors follow the SOP. You're not robbing the instructor of their soul, they can be charismatic and hit on the chicas while they teach by the SOP. Do packer's follow an SOP? (hopefully the manufacturer's instructions!!!). Ok, once you get SOP's typed up, they should be easily accessable to the people doing the work (laminate them and hang them in the hanger, mock up, etc.).

Then focus on getting your resources where you need them at the exact time you need them. You can start by only scheduling pilots / TM's / AFF I's / etc. when you need them. Start keeping historical data on your no. of students (your demand) if you dont already do so in order to forecast your student load for any given day. You can bet your ass it's going to be seasonal. So crunch your numbers in Excel or check out a seasonal forecasting model online or in a production planning book. Consider all your resources, not just the human ones. For example, the student should get a jumpsuit / helmet exactly when it is needed...how you manage that is an individual dropzone effort.

Your customers are your "product" in a service industry such as skydiving. And any IE will tell you inventory is bad…you want your customers there right when they are supposed to be. So rather than teach 2 classes all day and cramming all your students into one of the two (here your objective is: minimize no. of classes taught), teach one class every half hour, hour, 2 hours, etc depending on your contraints. For a 182 DZ, your main constraint is probably airplane capacity...so you should only schedule 2 students (assume no video) every complete cycle time (if it takes the plane 30 min to get to 10,000ft, and another 30 min to train, paperwork, etc. then you should schedule two students per hour).

Next, smooth out your system by eliminating bottlenecks. Don't worry, you cant eliminate all the bottlenecks, you can only move them around and make them less of a problem. Where are the bottlenecks? Look for your inventory to tell you that…inventory will pile up at a bottleneck. See a bunch of students waiting for paperwork, there's your bottleneck (remember, students are you inventory). Students waiting on the ground b/c a rig's not packed, packing is your bottleneck.

It'd be nice to see professional DZ's implement IE tools to improve their dropzone in order to increase customer satisfaction and maximze dropzone profits. The student's will be happy they don’t have to wait, instructors will be happy that they're staying busy and making money, and the dropzone will be happy b/c it's eliminating waste and maximizing profit...so they can put that plastic ball pit like mcdonalds has in, or add the long-awaited hot tub on top of the hangar.

Use caution though….treat your students and your employees like people…a lean system shouldn't equal a mean one!

IE, F,S,

A New Low of Dorkdom...Woolly

_________________________________________
It's impossible to build a foolproof parachute because the fools are so ingenious!

[1snowangel 0]

While reading your post Wooly, I could see our bottlenecks crystal clear. The biggest problem IMO for us (and probably numerous other DZ's that aren't large), is that the "staff" is really volunteer based. We aren't busy enough to support someone who is a full time packer, so we end up with instructors, or the DZO packing...and the DZO is also a TI, AFFI....I guess where I am going with this is a bit off topic, but how do you get/encourage new packers to enter in to the picture? We have plenty of able bodied instructors who could pack the rig that they just jumped (and receive compensation for it), but they see the old guy TI doing absolutely nothing above and beyond making the jump with the student, and it snowballs. Our bottle neck seems to happen at the same place almost every weekend..the packing area. So...

1.How do you handle the old time TI who refuses to be a team player and always contributes heavily to the bottleneck?

2. How do you handle the new instructors who see the old ones doing nothing, and follow the example?

My knee jerk reaction is to give none of them any work for a couple weekends, until they have to start paying out of pocket for fun jumps..LOL...but that's why I would not make a good DZO...and it would obviously be a little tough on the bottom line at the end of the weekend, because we wouldn't book as many while trying out the wake up call on the TI's that won't help pack and keep the show rolling...but maybe it would be worth a try??

Open for suggestions! Help!