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Al Harris believes in owning equipment. It's the bedrock of his 20-year-old sealcoating business, enabling his small crew to out-produce contractors with larger crews, and it's the basis of his approach to his entire pavement maintenance operation.

"We invest in equipment totally for efficiency," Harris says. "It's the key to winning many of the jobs we go after, and it's the key to being efficient. If you have the equipment you're not limited as to what you can do, so when I tell a customer we can do something, we can do it."

By owning enough equipment, and the right combination of equipment, North Suburban Asphalt Maintenance, Wheeling, IL, is able to allocate the best mix of equipment to each job, resulting in the most efficient use of equipment and labor - and greater profit. In fact, largely because of the way he uses equipment, a typical day for his small crew will involve routing and cracksealing up to 8,000 linear feet of cracks and cleaning and applying two coats of sealer on up to 250,000 sq. ft. of parking lot.

"That's about the norm," Harris says. "It's definitely more at times, but we can comfortably do 250,000 sq. ft. in a day, no problem."

Commercial work focus
Growth of North Suburban Asphalt Maintenance follows a pattern that likely looks familiar to many pavement maintenance contractors: Out of the trunk of his car Harris sealcoated driveways part time starting in 1988. In 1997 his father, Howard, joined as part of the crew and Harris added small commercial jobs, often subcontracted. Then he bought his first 1,000-gal. spray machine.