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Shop Organization: Difference between revisions

From Bike Collectives Wiki
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== Welcome Kiosk ==
== Welcome Kiosk ==


[[Image:SLCBC_Kiosk_Image.jpg|right|thumb|Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk]]
[[Image:SLCBC_Kiosk_Image.jpg|right|thumb|Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk (large)]]
[[Image:SLCBC_Kiosk.jpg|right|thumb|Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk]]
[[Image:SLCBC_Kiosk.jpg|right|thumb|Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk]]


Write down all the questions that people ask when they come to your shop and you will start to see trends in questions.  While it is always best to have a volunteer or staff be a [[greeter]] it can help to have those frequently asked questions with responses posted somewhere.
Write down all the questions that people ask when they come to your shop and you will start to see trends in questions.  While it is always best to have a volunteer or staff be a [[greeter]] it can help to have those frequently asked questions with responses posted somewhere.  At the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective they were given an old Kiosk from a bank and a college student project made the sign.

Revision as of 14:46, 25 August 2007

How a shop is organized can help make it more accessible to new visitors and volunteers. A well organized shop also takes less effort to maintain, and helps reduce the amount of time spent searching for appropriate parts.

This page is an attempt at documenting the ideas, devices, and systems used by different bike projects to keep their shops organized and accessible.

Wheel Sorter

Photos and instructions coming soon. Free Ride uses a wheel sorter to help new volunteers figure out the sizes of different rims. Two 2x4's are mounted to a rigid backing to form a V shape. Smaller wheels can rest lower in the V than larger wheels. The sorter is calibrated by placing various wheels of known size in the V and marking where the axels touch the backing. When a wheel of unknown size is placed in the sorter its axel should lie very close to one of these marks.

Color Coded Bike

Free Ride has a bike mounted near the ceiling of the shop. The major systems of the bike are spray painted different bright colors. Cabinets, drawers, tool drawers, and just about anything else we could think of are marked with matching colors. This makes it easy for volunteers to figure out what drawer to look in for the part they need.

Tube Bins

Free Ride has a big pile of unsorted tubes, many of which need patches. We have volunteers sort the tubes by size, check them for holes, squeeze out the air, fold the tubes up, then bind them individually with 'rubber bands' made from cut up tubes. These bundled tubes are sorted into smaller bins that are marked by the size and valve type of the tube they contain.

Tool Boxes

Free Ride checks out tool boxes containing a set of combination wrenches (8-15mm), 2 screw drivers, 3 allen keys, a 3-way hex socket, and a 3 way allen key. We keep IDs as collateral and make sure everythings there when its returned. This has significantly reduced the number of wrenches that wander away from the shop. It's also a good way to limit the number of people in the shop at any given time.

Wheel Rack

Photos coming soon. Free Ride stores wheels on hooks made of bent suicide levers. They are threaded onto high tension steel cable and spaced by short sections of PVC pipe. We need to rebuild ours using slightly more space between wheels to prevent entanglement.

File Cabinets

Free Ride stores components in file cabinets. The face of each drawer has an example of the contents bolted or wired to the front of it. This makes it easy for people to spot they thing they need, even if they're not sure of the name or location. The drawers also have the name of the part in vinyl lettering so that people can learn the names on their own.

Small Parts Drawers

Free Ride has volunteers draw pictures of the small parts to go next to the names to go on the front of each small parts drawer. This makes finding the right thing a lot faster, even when you do know the name of the thing you're looking for.

Welcome Kiosk

Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk (large)
Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective Welcome Kiosk

Write down all the questions that people ask when they come to your shop and you will start to see trends in questions. While it is always best to have a volunteer or staff be a greeter it can help to have those frequently asked questions with responses posted somewhere. At the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective they were given an old Kiosk from a bank and a college student project made the sign.