In his Friday morning session at NACE, “Simple Cycle Time Solutions,” Ron Kuehn of Collision Business Solutions helped shop owners break down the production process into its component parts so that repairers could get a better handle on what factors were dragging down their cycle times, and how to improve them.
"Shops have to stop getting wrapped up in things they have no control over," Kuehn said. "If I talk to any owner or manager, I hear stories about problems with the insurance company, the parts they have to use, or the customer that won't pick up their car because they've fallen in love with their rental. A plethora of things will come out, and these are all reasons their cycle time isn't any better."
While those are valid obstacles, Kuehn says shops are dwelling on things they can't improve. By doing so, they waste time and energy trying to boost cycle times by "fixing" operations in a scattershot and disorganized manner.
A better approach is to separate the production into three main categories: things that happen pre-production; things that happen during production; and post-production events that occur once the vehicle is ready to be picked up. By establishing a baseline of performance in each of these areas, shops can monitor how they are performing against benchmarks, and whether their efforts to improve cycle time are actually working.
"If you aren't breaking it down this way, then most shops are just trying to fix cars faster, and going by instinct," Kuehn said. "Then they look at the end result and it didn't really help. They weren't working in the right areas."
In the pre-production phase, Kuehn said many shops stumble in their haste to get the vehicle in front of a technician. "The gun goes off when we get the keys, but then in the process of getting the vehicle torn down and to a technician we miss a lot of things," Kuehn said. "First, there's no consistency as to what 'torn down' actually means. And once you've torn the car down, then what do you do? Do you give the tech another car to work on while he's waiting on approvals or parts for the first vehicle? You can wind up thinking you're making progress because the technician is busy, but in truth you're not getting anywhere."
It's also important for shops to implement a quality standard to determine exactly when production really begins – in other words, all of the approvals should be in place, and the parts either on hand or on the way, before production begins. From there, shops have to determine how they are dispatching jobs, and how many vehicles should be on the production floor on any given day.
During post-production, shops often have problems getting customers to pick up their vehicles in a timely manner. "We don't proactively manage the customer to come pick up their vehicle unless it's the end of a pay period," Kuehn said. "The people making promises to the customer about when the car is going to be done are happy with where that time and date is. But when we start fixing cars faster, we don't move the customer forward because of past experiences, when promises were made about delivery dates, but those dates had to be pushed back."
The key is communication and rigorously managing the elements of the repair process that shops can control. "You have to manage things you are going to do anyway, but manage them earlier in the process," Kuehn said. "You have to make sure you have specific parts at a certain juncture before you begin repairs, and make sure there is a timeline designated for the things we may not have yet (like moldings) but that we'll need at the end of the process. You requisition those items during disassembly, not while you're putting the vehicle back together."
Importantly, Kuehn emphasized that the entire staff must be engaged in the cycle time improvement effort. "This is not a top-down issue," Kuehn said. "You have to consistently come back to the people who are doing the work and look for ways to improve the process."
