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Page 1 of 2 Recently, an insurance carrier asked me to make suggestions as to how they might improve cycle time at some of their repair partner shops. My belief is that the cardinal rule for improving cycle time is that complete estimates need to be written up front, and not loaded with supplements on the back end. In other words, the vehicle needs to be torn down at the start of the process and a very detailed estimate written.
| The tech team for Holmes Body Shop: Oscar Zamora, Arturo Mendoza, Jesus Saravia, Ciro Chinchilla, Steve Navas and Jonas Solis with center manager Wade Sill in the background.
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Many repair shops do a partial tear down and supplement as they go along in the repair process, slowing down cycle time. Let's say that the shop is working on a '98 Honda Accord and the estimate specifies that the technician remove the drip rail molding for paint access. The tech finishes all the body repairs and just prior to the car going into the paint department, removes the drip rail molding. Guess what? Six of the clips break, but the tech does not tell anyone about them. The vehicle is scheduled to go out in two days and just prior to finishing the car, he tells the manager that he needs the clips. Bingo, the car does not go out on schedule. If the tech had removed the molding prior to the start of the repair process, the estimator could have already ordered the broken clips. This delay would have been avoided had the vehicle been torn down prior to the start of repair process. The tech team for Holmes Body Shop: Oscar Zamora, Arturo Mendoza, Jesus Saravia, Ciro Chinchilla, Steve Navas and Jonas Solis with center manager Wade Sill in the background. Reduced cycle time in shops I decided to do a little study to validate my beliefs, and I enlisted the help of Tom Holmes, Holmes Body Shops, who made his Los Angeles area repair centers available for this study. First and foremost, within 48 hours of arrival at a Holmes Body Shop, standard operating procedure (SOP) calls for the vehicles to be torn down a sheet written. At the time of this article, having tracked over 35 vehicles, there is 100 percent compliance on the tear down aspect of the SOP. There is a drop in that percentage on written estimates, which can be attributed to the fact that the body shop does not always have the insurance assignment when tear-down begins. One of the first orders of business when a vehicle arrives at the shop is to get an authorization for tear down (with a price quote). Getting this tear-down authorization allows the shop to begin the repair process without an as-signment from the insurance carrier. You may be asking how this shop gets these cars torn down so quickly. Holmes' secret, if you want to call it that, is his mentoring program. Estimator and trainee work together Holmes has been involved in training since he opened his shop over 25 years ago. In fact, he was recognized at the I-CAR 25th annual meeting for his 25-year involvement with I-CAR. He has set up a mentor program for young adults to enter the collision industry. I worked with two of Holmes' teams for this time study. Each team consisted of an estimator, estimator trainee (who works with both teams) and a lead tech with two helpers. Let's first look at the estimator and the trainee. The trainee's job is to get all the pertinent information from the vehicle owner, including all the information on the vehicle. After all the proper documents are signed, the trainee will mark the windshield with that information, photograph the vehicle and move it to a tear-down area. The trainee will then do a used parts search (no less than four outside sources) and note in the file the success of the search, the vendor's name and the price quote
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