Times is Money

In his article “Time is Money – Gimme More Measurements” Ed Kovalchick discusses the value of technician time.

“Here’s a simple view of the worth of a tech’s labor sales minute at 100% output. Example: $90 Per Hour Labor Rate/60 Work Minutes = $1.50 Per Minute Labor Sales. Consequently, when a tech is 15 minutes late for one day, the loss is 15 Min x $1.50 Per Minute or $22.50 Labor Sales. A tech who is chronically late several days a week generates a loss of 2 Days x $22.50 Labor Sales x 50 Weeks = $2,250 Labor Sales Loss Per Year for a measly 15 minutes, two days a week. When a shop has four, five, ten techs with these habits, the loss is huge over the year, not including the sales of the related parts typically another 60 to 90% of labor sales.

And what do these indiscretions cost the tech? At $20 flat rate, a minute is worth some $.34 in tech income. Fifteen minutes costs $5.10 and over a year, two days a week of being late eliminates $510 plus related benefits from the tech. Take another arbitrary five days off a year and that adds another $816 of lost income. Losing over $1300 a year in income is big hunk o’ check, and a loss of about $2500 annually in bill-paying money for that stall. Everyone loses.”

Mr. Kovalchick is concentrating on technician absenteeism and the effects of not managing those techs that are chronically late or absent from work. We at workflow solutions360° take the managing the lost time to the next level. This time goes mostly unnoticed because it isn’t visible in your normal day to day operations, but it’s there and it happens every day and every hour without fail. Technician bay absenteeism; every moment the technicians are not in their bay creating sellable time or performing sold time they are costing the department revenue and losing themselves dollars. The calculations Ed goes through not only works for being tardy or absent from work but also being absent from your bay. Matter of fact we believe internal processes and communication is a much bigger concern and something that is costing everyone a much larger hunk o’ money. Stores can average 15 – 30 minutes of wasted time on every repair order. Think about all those minutes technicians lose, from requesting parts, getting parts, requesting parts estimate, communicating the estimate to the service advisor, waiting for an answer from service guest, dispatching the next repair order, the list goes on. Using Ed calculations above every 20 minutes equals $30.00. Now take $30.00 (20 minutes) times every RO your service department writes every day. 3 service advisors, 15 repair orders per day equals 45 repair orders per day; 45 repair orders times $30.00 (20 minutes) equals $1300.00 of labor sales every day, without fail.

Now imagine keeping your technicians in their bays turning wrenches, using lost time. Imagine keeping your service advisors in their work centers assisting their service guests and giving them the ability to communicate with every department in the dealership. Imagine having the ability to view your processes, repair orders and answer questions/concerns from anywhere you have internet access. workflow360° allows you to do all this and much more. workflow360° is a true answer for all your processes and communication dreams. People, process, communication – workflow360° by workflow solution360°!

Rob Peart
Founding Team Member
Workflow Solutions360°