When a tool is worth repairing, and when it only looks like it

The rotary hammer is in for repair for the third time this year. Each time it cost „not that much", each time it took „a couple of weeks", and each time the decision went the same way: repair it, it is cheaper than a new one.

Possibly. But nobody can say for certain, because nobody adds up. The three cheap repairs are three separate amounts in three different months, and the six weeks the crew spent without a machine are written down nowhere.

The hidden cost is not the repair#

On a tool that breaks often, the invoice from the repair shop is the small, visible part. The rest appears on no piece of paper:

• The time you did not have it. The crew borrowed, improvised, or waited.
• The second one you bought to cover the gap, which then stays in the firm.
• The trips to the repair shop — there and back, every time.
• The job that ran late, which costs far more than the tool.

To compare „repair" against „replace" honestly you need the total per item, across its whole life. Which is exactly what nobody carries in their head.

Fault, service and repair spell are three different things#

They get conflated, which is why the records come out muddled. The app keeps them apart, because they lead to different decisions:

The third point is what changes the numbers. A tool that went in for repair four months ago and was forgotten there looks perfectly healthy in a system that only counts completed repairs.

Which tools are eating your money#

The app has a report that hunts for exactly the problem items and surfaces them. An asset lands there if it trips at least one of:

• In for repair too often — the count over the last six months.
• Broken for too long — it has spent more time out of service than working, since you bought it.
• A poor ratio of spend to value — what you have put in against what it is worth.

Tools that trip nothing do not appear at all. The report is not the inventory with numbers beside it; it is a short list of the items actually worth a decision.

What it does not do: tell you at what percentage to scrap something. That threshold belongs to the firm — how critical the tool is, what warranty is left, what a new one costs today. The app gives you the real figures so the decision stops being an impression.

The alerts come from the server, not the phone#

Services due and overdue repair spells are checked automatically, every morning, server-side. It does not depend on who opens the app or when. The distinction matters: an alert that only fires when somebody happens to open the right screen is an alert you receive after you already had the problem.

For vehicles the logic is the same but the paperwork differs — inspection, insurance, servicing. There the alerts start 30 and 7 days before expiry, then on the day, then after: see keeping track of vehicle documents. The figures from the report above feed into what your tools actually cost.