Fire & Marine, Inc.

This is how we tackle new equipment mounting jobs like the ones you will find on our Face book page. Used rigs are similar but handled slightly different. Once the delivery of your new apparatus is completed, inspected, and hopefully paid for. I mention paid for simply because that does take one element of stress out of the way of the creativity it takes to solve this much that fast. Plus it’s also not fair to hold up the manufactures being paid till our company is finished. At that time a meeting with the truck committee and FMI will take anywhere from a couple hours to several hours to make a plan of attack. If the manufacture would happen to be Sutphen Corporation this meeting is much easier for the department because the Sutphen’ s allow us to have this meeting in the delivery bay at their facility. If it’s not a Sutphen we can complete the work but it takes more effort on your part getting the truck to us. In this meeting we will discuss every detail from bumper to tail board. We will group the gear together for each compartment and photo graph each group. Sketch each compartment on graph paper and make notes on every detail discussed plus more photos of the details. The more info we record at that time the better. Lots of times this communication starts well before this meeting and sometimes years before. Other times we get the gear the truck a brief meeting and a green light on a budget. Usually told to do what we do best and make it all fit. After this meeting we will spend about eight hours editing the photos mostly cropping and changing light setting to bring out details. Then we take all the info at this point and start putting a price for each detail on a list. We do this to make sure the budget is on target. A detailed build book is assembled in a 3 ring binder for the shop floor with the truck committee’s photo and contact numbers on the front cover. This helps with communication and accountability on the shop floor. Helps make it personal. Once the project starts we start brainstorming as a group and the weld, cut, grind, sow and wiring gets serious. Throughout these part we will be calling and texting any question’s and changes. As the projects develop we like to send progress photos to a group text so the committee can be involved from start to finish. When the project is complete we wash the truck and photograph every detail to work up the final bill. This is the reason we have so many photos of our work. Plus when we work so hard on a job we get attached and the finished photos are our trophies. All the notes from the fabricators are put in a folder for future maintenance or damages and filled away. This plan always varies but usually takes place close to this. This is not an easy thing to accomplish and takes a great deal of effort for all involved. This process brings out the full potential of your equipment and your team of first responders. The end results are astonishing.