When visiting dealerships, owners and managers often ask me, “What can we provide the techs to help make them more efficient?” While there are plenty of things that we can provide techs, there are three key items that can prove very beneficial to the overall efficiency of your technicians.
1. The first one is a wash bay.
A wash bay can be a costly investment, however, if done correctly, will help your techs be more efficient and can give your customers a truly wow experience. Wash bays not only give us the ability to return a customer’s equipment to them clean, it also allows you to clean equipment before it comes into the shop. Clean equipment gives your techs clean parts to work on as well as helps them in deeper diagnosis when a unit is on their bench. Plus, this will help to keep a techs’ bay clear of mud, grass and debris and shorten cleanup time of their area at the end of the day.
2. The second resource is a quality equipment lift.
Lifts are an invaluable resource to have in a shop. Lifts help our techs have better vantage points and angles when working on equipment. When techs do not have to crawl around on the ground or haul jacks and jack stands around, they will be less tired and fatigued. This, combined with better vantage points, will help your dealership produce more efficient & billable hours each day. Quality equipment lifts can provide a fast return on your investment.
3. And last, but not least, is the shop tool box/or shop tool room.
We all know that each manufacturer has their own set of specialty tools that are specific to each model. I know these can be expensive (and I will agree not all of the tools are necessary) but most of them will help your techs turn work through your shop in a much more timely manner. With specialty tools, I strongly encourage you to have a check-in and check-out list as these tools are not cheap and can be misplaced very easily. Along with specialty tools, you should also have a few cordless impact guns available. These can be checked out just like the other tool by the techs when they might need to work on a piece of equipment away from the dealership or out in the lot.
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