One of the upsides of a challenging business environment is the elimination of stagnation. Many businesses, associations, service groups and frankly, our government are finding that they are not relevant to those who buy, consume, subscribe or contribute to them anymore. Some quietly fade away, but for others, the exciting opportunity to reinvent themselves results in a new spin on a great idea.
For the last few days I have been taking just such a spin down Blue Seal Drive — home of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) headquarters — in Leesburg, Va. You know them best for their two most famous residents, Tech A and Tech B. Their president and CEO, Tim Zilke, would suggest that you know them best for the 366,588 technicians, service consultants and parts specialists that they certify to the industry and the motoring public.
The Big Blue gear has been spinning fast recently. At the direction of a visionary board of directors and a staff talent pool that seems bottomless, the folks you know as ASE have added a whole bunch more letters to their alphabet-soup family lately, along with digitizing their old A, B, C, D into Tech A and Tech B for the 21st century. Let’s have a look at how this business, yes folks they are a business, has broken old notions and revitalized a struggling but critical portion of our industry.
By now you have almost certainly heard that ASE is ending the era of technicians killing trees with pencils. “ It was just too expensive to continue to print and administer the huge amount of forms necessary to deliver 48 tests in hundreds of test centers twice a year,” explained Tony Molla, ASE’s vice president of communications. “The problem was that computer-based testing was a major undertaking when you have to test about 100,000 people twice a year.”
The solution came by way of a new testing partner and a new testing paradigm for the company that administers more tests than any other in the country. The result was computer-based testing (CBT) that can now be delivered 8 months out of the year with test takers able to choose their appointments — like going to the dentist, but without the pain. “There are going to be some issues with the locations and the change as we and the industry get familiar with our new partner, Prometric, but we have insured the absolute integrity of the testing process and created a familiar look and feel for techs who have taken our paper and pencil tests in the past,” reported Zilke.
Just in case you were wondering, ASE’s test questions are created by actual subject matter experts chosen across a wide demographic of each specialty area to ensure each test’s relevance and integrity. Years of growing and refreshing this database has led to a coveted 22,000-plus questions — or “items” as they are known in ASE speak. Automotive series specialist John Tisdale told me, “ACT used to administer this database for us after we had our industry experts create the questions. Now, that work is performed inside ASE with a massive conversion operation that has kept the test series specialists and the IT department hopping as they prepare for the last two paper and pencil test administrations and simultaneously prepare for the first public CBT administration with their new partner.”
The ASE staff promises that the new flexible schedule, easily accessible test centers, instant results and no increase in the cost of taking the new, high-tech tests will make attaining and retaining those coveted ASE credentials easier.
Come back next month for Part 2 of “Reinventing the Gear.”
One of the upsides of a challenging business environment is the elimination of stagnation. Many businesses, associations, service groups and frankly, our government are finding that they are not relevant to those who buy, consume, subscribe or contribute to them anymore. Some quietly fade away, but for others, the exciting opportunity to reinvent themselves results in a new spin on a great idea.
For the last few days I have been taking just such a spin down Blue Seal Drive — home of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) headquarters — in Leesburg, Va. You know them best for their two most famous residents, Tech A and Tech B. Their president and CEO, Tim Zilke, would suggest that you know them best for the 366,588 technicians, service consultants and parts specialists that they certify to the industry and the motoring public.
The Big Blue gear has been spinning fast recently. At the direction of a visionary board of directors and a staff talent pool that seems bottomless, the folks you know as ASE have added a whole bunch more letters to their alphabet-soup family lately, along with digitizing their old A, B, C, D into Tech A and Tech B for the 21st century. Let’s have a look at how this business, yes folks they are a business, has broken old notions and revitalized a struggling but critical portion of our industry.
By now you have almost certainly heard that ASE is ending the era of technicians killing trees with pencils. “ It was just too expensive to continue to print and administer the huge amount of forms necessary to deliver 48 tests in hundreds of test centers twice a year,” explained Tony Molla, ASE’s vice president of communications. “The problem was that computer-based testing was a major undertaking when you have to test about 100,000 people twice a year.”
The solution came by way of a new testing partner and a new testing paradigm for the company that administers more tests than any other in the country. The result was computer-based testing (CBT) that can now be delivered 8 months out of the year with test takers able to choose their appointments — like going to the dentist, but without the pain. “There are going to be some issues with the locations and the change as we and the industry get familiar with our new partner, Prometric, but we have insured the absolute integrity of the testing process and created a familiar look and feel for techs who have taken our paper and pencil tests in the past,” reported Zilke.
Just in case you were wondering, ASE’s test questions are created by actual subject matter experts chosen across a wide demographic of each specialty area to ensure each test’s relevance and integrity. Years of growing and refreshing this database has led to a coveted 22,000-plus questions — or “items” as they are known in ASE speak. Automotive series specialist John Tisdale told me, “ACT used to administer this database for us after we had our industry experts create the questions. Now, that work is performed inside ASE with a massive conversion operation that has kept the test series specialists and the IT department hopping as they prepare for the last two paper and pencil test administrations and simultaneously prepare for the first public CBT administration with their new partner.”
The ASE staff promises that the new flexible schedule, easily accessible test centers, instant results and no increase in the cost of taking the new, high-tech tests will make attaining and retaining those coveted ASE credentials easier.
Come back next month for Part 2 of “Reinventing the Gear.”
