Improve your repair planning

Feb. 18, 2015
Eliminate delays — not supplements — by boosting process accuracy in your shop.

Bob Gilbert, NA Business Improvement & Process Consultant with AkzoNobel, also contributed to this story

Some call it repair planning. Others call it blueprinting, X-ray or strategic disassembly. The goal of this activity, whatever you choose to call it, is to eliminate delays in the repair process. When additional damage is identified after repairs have begun, delays ensue – waiting for approvals and for more parts. The reduction or elimination of these delays will have the single largest impact in your attempt to decrease cycle time, which is arguably the most important KPI to both the vehicle owner and insurer. Maintaining an acceptable cycle time is a huge step, albeit one of many, on your journey to creating a sustainable business model.

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Therein lies the true challenge of repair planning – the elimination of delays once repairs have begun. It’s important to further explain two aspects of this definition. First, many will challenge that the complete “elimination” of delays is unrealistic. However, using “elimination” over “reduction” adds a sense of urgency and importance to our mission. If you prefer to use “reduction” then I would challenge you to measure your current delays and set an exact target or goal. More on that in a moment.

The second aspect that needs further clarification is the timing of these delays. I did not say the goal is to eliminate supplements. As long as some repair types require the use of estimates in the initial stages (and there are no indications these are going anywhere) then supplements will always be a necessary evil within the repair process. But only one supplement, which is the result of your repair planning process and happens before repairs begin, is necessary! Any supplements that happen after repairs have begun are a defect.

This brings us back to the “elimination vs. reduction” dilemma. The challenge with these words is that one is finite and one is open to interpretation. So do yourself a favor and clearly state the desired level of reduction by setting a SMART goal (Specific, Measureable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time bound), such as this example - We will reduce our supplements after repair planning from 50 percent to 10 percent or less within 120 days.

Correct ineffective processes
As repairers realize their repair planning process hasn’t reduced or eliminated delays, but has instead become just another bottleneck, they begin to look for other solutions. It’s natural to then look at incorporating Lean principles such as 5S, Visual Management and Standardization to increase the effectiveness of their repair planning process. That’s what the original topic of this article was supposed to be – optimizing repair planning with lean. But then I called Bob Gilbert, AkzoNobel’s North American Business Improvement & Process Consultant. I called Bob because, in addition to teaching AkzoNobel’s Process Centered Environment (PCE) methodology to hundreds of repairers across North America, he has more in-shop-getting-dirty-real-world-implementation experience than anybody I know in this industry. And he laughed at me!

“Please don’t perpetuate the myth that Lean (or PCE) is the savior of repair planning,” Bob said.

Most Lean principles will not make your repair planning process more effective! There it is. The ugly truth is out. For this article, we’ll stay focused on repair planning, but I challenge you to think about your application of Lean principles within any process of your business and revisit your expectations.

Much has been written, presented, discussed and taught regarding Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints and PCE in the collision industry in the last 8 years. While these methodologies have their differences, they all share a common goal – process improvement. So how can you improve a process without improving its effectiveness?

5S organization
Let’s begin with 5S. This methodology is about creating workplace organization. It’s about having the right tools and equipment where you need them when you need them. A repair planning work stall is ripe for the application of 5S. First you would apply the Sort phase by identifying the tools and equipment you need in that area – lift and/or floor jack, jack stands, good lighting, hand tools, parts cart, computer, estimating software, etc. The second phase, Set in Order or Straighten, is applied by identifying where the work will take place and where the tools and equipment will be located to facilitate ease of use. Shine, the third phase, shows up in your efforts to keep this work area clean. A couple examples of Shine would be to return tools to their home when done using them and sweeping the floor between jobs. The fourth phase, Standardization, can be applied by using visual management tools such labeling and outlining. This might look like lines on the floor to identify where the parts cart must go or a placard on that parts cart that shows what is supposed to be stored on each shelf. Sustain, the last and hardest phase to implement, is there to keep this neat and orderly workplace from going to pot. Now let’s apply 5S to the goal of repair planning to see if it makes it more effective. Remember, the goal of repair planning is to eliminate delays from the repair process and it does this by identifying 100 percent of the labor, parts and materials needed to repair the vehicle. Repair planning can still produce jobs that create delays later in the process, despite coming from a neat and orderly area.

Visual Management, Standardization
So what about Visual Management and Standardization? They are often taught as standalone tools despite their inclusion in 5S. I have seen some wonderful examples of these tools incorporated into some very effective repair planning implementations. In one example, the shop put a bright yellow stripe on the floor behind the vehicle with the labels “Replace” on one side and “R&I” on the other. As the Disassembly Technician removed parts from the car he would place them on the floor on one side or the other of the yellow stripe. This meant the repair planner didn’t have to be there when the tech began the disassembly. When the repair planner finished writing the previous job, he wheeled his computer cart to the new job and, without verbal input from the technician, knew which labor operations to write and which parts needed to be replaced. This process was very visual and followed a standard. As an additional quality control measure, the technician marked a green “X” with a grease pencil on all the parts to be replaced. This ensured that proper identification could be made even after the parts were cleared from the work stall. This is an example of yet another methodology — in-process quality — used in creating a PCE. So this one sub-process has elements of 5S, Visual Management, Standardization, and In-process Quality!

In this particular example, the proper identification of parts does not mean that all the parts were identified, just the ones the technician removed from the vehicle. I’ve seen spectacular examples of visual management and standardization in other repair planning implementations that still resulted in too many delays from damage and parts missed during repair planning.

Understanding process improvements
So what’s with all the hype about Lean and other process improvement methodologies? Just understand the truth and fallacies about them, especially in regard to the effectiveness of repair planning. We’ve already established that an effective repair planning process will reduce or eliminate delays by identifying 100 percent of the labor, parts and materials needed to repair the vehicle. I think it’s time to suggest a synonym for effectiveness. Let’s use “accuracy” and then rephrase our dilemma – implementing Lean methodologies or principles will not make your repair planning process more accurate. They will however, help make your repair planning process more efficient.

Inevitably you may have a couple questions left. Like, “If Lean doesn’t increase the effectiveness of my repair planning process, then what does?” That’s easy; and I already gave away the answer – set a goal and measure it. If the goal is to reduce or eliminate delays in the repair process, simply measure any delays that occur and trace them back to your repair planning process. Identify how it occurred and, more importantly, discuss with the team how to update the process to avoid it in the future. People will always focus more attention on their actions that are being measured. For those that are keeping score, we just identified yet another Lean-related principle – Kaizen! Commonly referred to as Continuous Improvement, Kaizen is the lone Lean-related activity that will improve the effectiveness of your repair planning process.

Don’t abandon your efforts to incorporate Visual Tools, 5S, Standardization and the other more popular Lean principles into your processes. Just know that their intention is to identify and/or eliminate waste from your processes, making them more efficient, not more accurate. You can still turn out a bad repair, you’ll just do it faster. If you want to increase the effectiveness, or accuracy, of your repair planning process, measure the defects after repair planning (supplements) and use Kaizen to identify the cause of the defect and, more importantly, the solution to ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

Many repairers can quickly tell you how many cars they process through repair planning in a day, but few can tell you how many were done completely and accurately. Why? Because they don’t measure it. Would you be happy if your refinish team put 10 cars through one spray booth in a day? But what if 5 of those 10 cars had defects that negatively impacted cycle time? Would you still be happy they painted 10 cars? Probably not. If you’ve implemented a repair planning process but still experience a high percentage of delays due to multiple supplements, you may want to revisit your process. You’ll probably find you’re still estimating but just calling it repair planning.

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