Running the Numbers – Elevator-Style

Here at the posh Pioneer HQ, we are well-aware of the vagaries of our elevators — outages, structural issues, and expired certificates of inspection.

The State Auditor took a look at the state agency responsible for inspecting elevators, the Department of Public Safety, and found that 30% of the elevators in the state have expired inspections.

The Auditor’s report notes that this represents a large amount of foregone revenue — $2.2 million for the current year’s overdue inspections and over $6 million for the elevators that have gone uninspected for multiple years.

The Auditor’s report suggests that hiring 13 more inspectors would cure the backlog. Using the back of the envelope, the average inspector gets $62k in salary (thanks, www.massopenbooks.org), add in 25% to account for fringe benefits and you get $77.5k in compensation.

So, 13 inspectors at $77.5k costs you about $1m to capture $2.2m in revenue. Better yet, could you outsource the entire operation to a interdependent certification firms (like we do some environment inspections) and save additional funds.

Either way, this strikes me as an opportunity, not a problem.