Zara's Collision Center in Springfield, Ill., is owned by Brad Zara, who says the key to their shop's flow is to have dedicated staff in each area of the shop. Every step and every phase is focused on producing the team's goals for that day, he says. And his team is motivated to work through a team-pay structure.
Here are his two simple tips for reducing supplements:
Tip No.1
Zara says it all starts at the repair planning stage. Once the car is through the repair planning phase, if anything additional is needed, the team views that as a delay, Zara says. In order to maintain a 10 percent supplement rate, the team has a repair planner and one disassembly technician work together on the repair plan. After isolating those jobs, the team saw the repair move faster.
There are 15 technicians at the shop and they work in a 16,500 square foot facility. The technicians are segmented throughout the process.
Tip No. 2
Zara says a shop should be tracking the repair. The team uses a spreadsheet during the blueprinting process that is used to monitor any delays the vehicle encounters after the repair planning step, Zara says. Then, the whole team will review the information once a month and look over what caused the delays and whether the number of hours needed for each day was reached.
And an additional whiteboard in the shop is crucial for tracking scheduling. The board helps the team visually see how many hours each job is scheduled for and remember to meet those hours, Zara says. Each day, the team meets at 9 a.m. to work out the schedule based off the hours filled the day before.
