Efficiencies

I have to start off by apologising for my lack of contribution of late. It hasn't been a lack of interest, simply trouble in juggling all things at once. Work has been just chaotic over the past 5 to 6 weeks and then I've been ill for 3 weeks now. Both of which are stories for another day.

As I have written a few times, I have been travelling up to Kiruna for work every second week for the past 18 months now. I don't mind it too much. I've built up a good network of professional colleagues whom I consider also to be personal friends. I don't know if they think the same of me, but I do try. Working solo full-time on the same project for nearly 2 years has been quite tough, and it's not done with yet. For that reason I enjoy the travel time to and from Kiruna. It's time that I get just for me, without having to stress over phone calls or emails. That's become valuable for me.

The work I am carrying out is for LKAB which is a massive Swedish mining company with seemingly unlimited resources. It seems that lately one of their management staff must have watched some kind of business efficiency programme on Discovery channel. All of a sudden they are looking at how they do things and how they can improve. That sounds really great, unfortunately it's a bit of a shotgun approach with clearly not a lot of thought put into the new schemes they are starting to throw out there.

Their latest brainstorm has centered around travel to Kiruna. As I said, we have a project meeting every second week in Kiruna. There are several consultancies working on various parts of the project and we all sit in different parts of Sweden. I fact, apart from the one client representative at the meeting, none of us live in Kiruna where the meeting is held. Which means that 12 of us have to travel. 5 travel up from Stockholm, 1 lives in Gällivare which is a one hour drive from Kiruna. The rest of us travel up from Luleå, a distance of around 400km. When I first started, I used to drive to Kiruna. Mainly for the freedom to leave when it suited me. For the last 6 months I've been taking the train. That has allowed me to relax along the way, be fresh for the meeting and for work the next day, and also to do any preparation work prior to the meeting. So it's worked well. The others from Luleå have all done the same thing. Obviously those from Stockholm have always flown and the chap from Gällivare has driven the one hour plus change to Kiruna.

About 6 weeks ago, all that was to change. The LKAB efficiency guru announced that all consultants should now fly to Kiruna, regardless of where they live. Supposedly more cost and time effective. I thought about this for about 5 minutes, and then decided to ignore it until someone dragged it in front of me. On Wednesday we had our normal meeting planned. It was an early morning start, which I wasn't going to be able to make with the early morning train, so I booked the train the night before and a hotel room in Kiruna. These meetings also finish notoriously late, so I booked an extra hotel night and the morning train the following day. My fellow colleagues all booked flights both to and from Kiruna over the one day. During our lunch break in Kiruna, we discussed the merits of the new system, and here is how it worked out:

My trip to Kiruna consisted of a 250kr train ticket and 3 1/4 hours travel. Add in the trip home and it comes to 500kr and 6 1/2 hours. Two nights in a Kiruna hotel with meals cost me 2,400kr. Total cost to the client was 2,900kr.

My colleague's flying trip from the same starting point consisted of a 700kr 40 minute taxi ride to Luleå airport. 30 minutes check in waiting time at the airport. The flight to Kiruna took one hour and 20 minutes, and cost 2,500kr. Taxi from Kiruna airport to the meeting place took 20 minutes and cost 250kr.Total price for a one-way trip was 3,450kr, and the journey took 2 hours and 50 mintues. Same deal for the way home meant that the total cost to the client was 6,900kr.

My trip cost 2,900kr and took 6 1/2 hours. Their trip cost 6,900kr and took 5 1/2 hours. So they spent one hour less than me but were 4,000kr dearer. Per person.

So here's the thing, Mr LKAB efficiency person. My hourly charge-out rate to you is 1,000kr per hour. That one hour that you want me to save by flying, costs you the price equivalent of 3 extra hours, and you get zero productivity from me during those 3 extra hours that you've just paid for. Efficiency ? Really ?

To really illustrate the point, look at the guy from Gällivare. In the past he has driven his car up the road to Kiruna, which takes about an hour and 10 minutes. Now he flies the same route. His travel time alone, for which he charges the client, is now 2 hours and 20 minutes. I wonder how long it's going to take before they figure this one out ? I think I'll keep on ignoring it until then.