About the time many people were enjoying a summer vacation, I was "enjoying" a somewhat humbling couple of days with a consultant at my shop.
I decided to bring in the consultant primarily to help us improve the work flow of our office. Too often, it seemed, for example, our paperwork was lagging behind jobs moving into production or behind finished cars getting delivered.But it's amazing what a knowledgeable person from outside your business can see inside your shop. This consultant is someone who we've known for two years, who is very experienced in the industry and who was familiar with our management team and with our numbers through some offsite meetings. This was his first visit to our shop, however.
He spent the two days observing, talking informally with our employees, and holding a meeting with our front-office staff. The depth and breadth of his ideas and recommendations is almost a little intimidating. They actually encompass not just office processes but also facility, equipment and production issues. And as hard as it is to admit it – because who doesn't think their shop is operating pretty effectively – I think he was spot-on in much of what he suggested.
Here are a few of the things on the to-do list he helped us create:
- Because we hadn't established a standard operating procedure (SOP), our paint department wasn't consistently creating and organizing spray-out cards to build a "library" that will reduce our color match time. We also haven't been taking advantage of the rewards our paint company offers for submitting paint samples cut from damaged vehicle panels (which helps them improve their color information).
- We had a calendar of maintenance schedules for our equipment and facility, but he suggested we designate who is responsible for each of the items on that calendar.
- While in my experience we "know our numbers" better than many shops, I can definitely see the value in his suggestion that I build a notebook for all of the reports I want to look at on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, along with a checklist of what I specifically should be looking for in each of those reports.
- He laid out a somewhat revised office organizational chart, suggesting we look at changes in how we divide up tasks and assign responsibilities. He provided job descriptions for each of those possible revised roles and this is something we are still discussing internally.
- He suggested we improve some of our parts SOPs, and then bring in the parts managers from the dealerships we buy from to review our expectations with them.
- We've built what are sometimes called "point of use carts," which essentially provide a body technician, for example, with all the items he's most likely to need in an organized (and movable to the vehicle) fashion. The consultant suggested we assign someone from each department to check the carts in the other department once a week to make sure they are being maintained how we've agreed they should be.
- He also suggested that several of us in the office perform some estimate audits on an ongoing but random basis. He provided a checklist for this. Essentially it entails reviewing the paperwork for any vehicle in any stage of the process. We're looking to ensure there's a work order with the vehicle, that all items shown on the work order are being performed, that appropriate stock items are being charged for, that often-overlooked refinish operations have been itemized, etc.
I wrote a couple years ago about the value of looking at the outside of your shop with "fresh eyes," trying to see it as a potential new customer would, in order to improve signage and "curb appeal." The consultant is doing something similar for us inside the shop. Although it's hard to look at the long list of to-do items he left for each of us, we know in the end our business will improve because we brought in a "fresh set of eyes" to spot things we miss because we're here enmeshed in the day-to-day.
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