No more Dragon your heels
New research from Dragon2000 reveals that if garages and workshops increase their efficiency by just one hour per day, at an average labour rate of £70 per hour, it could result in £18,200 of extra labour sales per year.
A garage or workshop with five technicians, who each increases their efficiency by one hour a day, can head towards making extra annual labour sales of almost £100,000.
If garages and workshops increase the number of jobs they carry out each day, it can have a massive impact not just on turnover, but on customer satisfaction too, as lead times for service bookings can be shortened.
Mark Kelland, commercial manager at Dragon2000, said, ‘Some garages and workshops are not monitoring their technicians’ efficiency so they may take longer than necessary completing labour items or spending excessive time on non-productive tasks – missing out on chargeable hours. On top of this, if garages and workshops are not closely managing jobs allocation, then technicians can’t work to near, or full capacity.
‘To help garages and workshops improve their efficiency, Dragon2000 has released a new Technician Scheduler feature to all existing users of their dealer management system, DragonDMS, which will help garages and workshops to improve efficiency and in turn, increase profitability.
‘The new Technician Scheduler shows capacity levels at a glance and will also suggest suitable technicians to assign labour to, depending on their pre-set skill sets. As well as MOTs and standard service work, it is ideal for managing long-term jobs, especially for those working on motorhomes, or classic car restoration projects.
‘The feature also accommodates shift patterns and allows for apprentice technicians to have a lower efficiency rate, so they are allowed extra time, as they would take longer to carry out work than experienced technicians.
‘No-shows, staff absences, delayed repairs and emerging work can also all be identified and jobs can be re-assigned or moved as required – giving a real-time view of workshop capacity and flexibility, to ensure the workshops or garages are always loaded as efficiently as possible, to maximise potential labour sales.’
