Parts

 Parts are the best excuse for poor repair performance in today’s collision repair industry. Exasperated estimators throw up their hands and ask, “How was I supposed to know that this part was unavailable?” The answer is simple, call the parts vendor and ask what the availability of a given part is.

 The majority of today’s repair shops do not order the parts necessary to repair a vehicle until that vehicle is in the shop, ready to get fixed. It is only then that they call or fax their vendor and order part A, part B, Part C, and part D. It’s not until these parts are delivered that they discover that not all of these parts are readily available. It’s only when the delivery truck shows up later in the day with part A, part B and part D, and no part C that the person responsible for getting these parts bothers to ask, “When will part C arrive?”

 At Express Autobody we’ll check on the availability of the necessary parts before the repair is scheduled. If there’s a part that’s not readily available we’ll let our customer know in advance. We’ll reschedule the repair and preorder those parts so they’ll be here when the vehicle arrives.

 Another common problem with most repair shops is getting the wrong parts for a given repair. There are a number of reasons why this happens. The information given to the parts vendor is inaccurate or incomplete, the estimate is vague or incomplete, or more often the estimate was written hastily and never audited so the parts ordered are wrong to begin with.

 At Express Autobody we use our Preferred Vendor Program to delegate some of the responsibility of parts delivery to the vendors who supply those parts to us. We’ll send our vendors a parts list taken from our comprehensive damage assessment along with pictures of the damaged vehicle. We’ll set up an appointment for the delivery of these parts and we’ll expect our vendors to keep those appointments. If a vendor sends us an incomplete order, an order with the wrong parts, or fails to keep the scheduled appointment we’ll consider that a violation of the criteria agreed to in our Preferred Vendor Program. Vendors who consistently violate this criteria will be removed from the program.

Supplements

 Any time a supplement is requested the cycle time of that repair will be adversely affected. Work will stop for the supplement to be written, to be approved, for additional parts to get ordered, for those parts to arrive, and for those parts to get cut in or trimmed out.

 In many of today’s collision repair centers the number of supplements written is considered a key performance indicator for the shop’s estimators. It is believed that the more supplements they write, the better job they’re doing at catching all of the potential profit in a given repair. Express Autobody will also use the number of supplements as a performance indicator, but in the opposite way. We feel that the fewer supplements written, the better job the repair analyst is doing in writing comprehensive damage reports.

 We at Express Autobody understand that Estimators are under a great deal of pressure in today’s repair environment. That’s why we’re taking a radically different approach with respect to how we do business. At Express Autobody we’ve split up the job the average Estimator is asked to do. We use Customer Service Representatives, (CSR’s) to deal with our customers. The CSR is responsible for selling the repair, scheduling in the repair, keeping the customer informed, maintaining a low cycle time average, and insuring that all of our quality standards are met. Our damage reports will be written by our damage analysts. Their duties include writing comprehensive damage reports, interacting with insurance personnel with respect to those reports, determining the availability of the needed parts, ordering those parts, assigning the repairs to the technicians, maintaining a low cycle time average, and insuring that all of our quality standards are met.

 If a supplement is necessary it will be the exception, not the rule. Any discrepancy between an insurance company damage report and Express Autobody’s damage report will be resolved before the repair is scheduled if possible. If there is a complex repair that may require one or more supplements, the CSR will inform the customer and the insurance company before that repair is started.

 Our repair technicians will be involved in this process. Unlike many shops, our technicians won’t be assigned multiple repairs to be performed concurrently. At those places if a technician has to stop repairs on a vehicle for a supplement, they’ve got another one waiting for them to get started on. At Express Autobody our technicians won’t get assigned a repair until they complete the one they’re working on. Halting progress for a supplement will adversely affect their earnings capability. It is in their best interest to get that repair in, and out.

 Our parts personnel’s performance will also be measured by our average cycle time. It is also in their best interest to make certain that everything’s accounted for in the beginning, as opposed to not worrying about until the supplement is written.

At Express Autobody we know that it’s not enough to work harder, we’ve got to work smarter also.