Refining your automotive service processes - by Jeff Smit
Every recurring task in an automotive workshop should have method and order to it. The kinds of vehicles being serviced in aftermarket workshops are changing all the time, but are your processes changing at the same pace? This implies that recurring tasks need to be evaluated regularly if a workshop hopes to keep up to date and run at peak efficiency. Have you ever seen the service process involved with the servicing of an aircraft engine? It’s extremely detailed and every step is documented, for obvious reasons. We don’t need to go to that extreme, but a position somewhere in the middle would be ideal. Revising service processes might seem like a time-consuming chore, but doing it in an orderly fashion will be worth the effort. Workshop efficiency will improve and any recurring service issues will be resolved. As a by-product, and a real bonus, the quality of work will rise, and training new technicians will become infinitely easier.
Where to start In considering what basic service processes need to be improved, start with the jobs that irritate you the most. It might be a task that takes longer than it should or one in which mistakes consistently occur. It doesn’t really matter if at first you don’t know exactly why it bothers you – the fact that it does is enough to indicate that something isn’t working as well as it should be.
2 2 CAPRICORN IGNITION NOVEMBER 2021
