Main dealers. The little tinkers!

[itcaptainslow]

lyonspride said:

2354519y said:

But how much time/money is actually saved by not changing a paper element filter?
Pure greed

Not greed, just the technicians don't have enough time to do all the work they have scheduled to them. It's a very common problem in dealerships, where the work schedule and job times are worked out by the service manager (often used to be a salesman), who has probably never so much as lifted a spanner in his life and who is more concerned with producing fictitious performance graphs for the boardroom to impress the MD.
Job times in these cases are based on ideal circumstances, where nut/bolts don't get stuck or cross-threaded, where all the parts and consumables are in stock, where tools are not broken, where nobody takes a p*ss break, etc etc etc..........

Book times are most certainly not calculated by the service manager-it’s by the manufacturer.

[lyonspride]

itcaptainslow said:

Book times are most certainly not calculated by the service manager-it’s by the manufacturer.

So it's worse then?
By some desk jockey calculating times based on what? and In an environment full of new cars, new parts and rust free bolts.

And actually whilst the manufacturer sets guidelines, idiot service manager is going to be seeking to "trim the fat" so that he get's his monthly productivity bonus.

[itcaptainslow]

lyonspride said:

itcaptainslow said:

Book times are most certainly not calculated by the service manager-it’s by the manufacturer.

So it's worse then?
By some desk jockey calculating times based on what? and In an environment full of new cars, new parts and rust free bolts.

And actually whilst the manufacturer sets guidelines, idiot service manager is going to be seeking to "trim the fat" so that he get's his monthly productivity bonus.

Yup-some of the times are pie in the sky.

Nope-the “idiot” service manager as you put it, won’t be looking to “trim the fat”. He has no influence over what the manufacturer sets. If anything he’ll want the times increased, as that’s what his guys are paid on and he wants happy staff. Increased labour time allowances mean more profit.

Most dealer pay plans incentivise service managers on gross profit, labour hours sold (so how does “trimming the fat” help with that one?) and CSI results.

There are a few crooks out there giving the industry a bad name, but there’s also a lot of bks being spouted which people then take as gospel.

Edited by itcaptainslow on Tuesday 6th March 06:49

[lyonspride]

itcaptainslow said:

lyonspride said:

itcaptainslow said:

Book times are most certainly not calculated by the service manager-it’s by the manufacturer.

So it's worse then?
By some desk jockey calculating times based on what? and In an environment full of new cars, new parts and rust free bolts.

And actually whilst the manufacturer sets guidelines, idiot service manager is going to be seeking to "trim the fat" so that he get's his monthly productivity bonus.

Yup-some of the times are pie in the sky.

Nope-the “idiot” service manager as you put it, won’t be looking to “trim the fat”. He has no influence over what the manufacturer sets. If anything he’ll want the times increased, as that’s what his guys are paid on and he wants happy staff. Increased labour time allowances mean more profit.

Most dealer pay plans incentivise service managers on gross profit, labour hours sold (so how does “trimming the fat” help with that one?) and CSI results.

There are a few crooks out there giving the industry a bad name, but there’s also a lot of bks being spouted which people then take as gospel.

Edited by itcaptainslow on Tuesday 6th March 06:49

Time is money, squeezing more work into an externally fixed time would mean more profit.
If the external job times say you can do 10 full services per day, but you can squeeze 14 into the same time period, than that's a substantial profit increase, this will undoubtedly come from leaning on the technicians and effectively forcing them to cut corners, which then boils down to a basic quality versus productivity situation. Given that said manager probably came from a sales background, and with that sales mentality productivity and short term gain will always comes first.

Productivity is easy to measure, any idiot can do it, and it looks great on graphs in the board room = instant brownie points. Quality is hard to measure, it requires a specific skill set, years of experience and a non-commission based salary, but again promoting salesmen up to "quality manager" seems to be a done thing these days.

As for treating staff right, keeping them happy, the vast majority of British managers are terrible at this, they assume (like most office workers) that anyone who who does a technical job is untrustworthy, lazy, needs an oppressive work environment, lots of pointless rules/procedures, times sheets, permission to use the toilet and constant over the top supervision. This does not make for happy staff......

Edited by lyonspride on Tuesday 6th March 11:53