Steve Trapp has decades of experience working with performance groups in the collision repair industry. In 1989, he helped AkzoNobel start the collision repair industry’s first performance group. Currently, he works for PPG as a strategic account manager.
He appeared on an episode of The Collision Vision podcast, driven by Autobody News and hosted by Cole Strandberg, to talk about what true efficiency looks like at the shop level, from workflow and quality standards to management presence, goal setting, productivity coaching and capital planning.
What Does Efficiency Mean in a Shop?
Efficiency in a collision shop comes down to being able to spend as much time as possible “with a tool in my hand making money,” Trapp said.
Data can help keep track of efficiency — cycle time, quality control scores, work in progress (WIP) versus optimal WIP, the number of cars in the “hospital” waiting on parts or supplement approvals, etc.
“All that data really can help us make better decisions on what cars to prioritize, so we keep a level flow,” Trapp said.
Trapp said his brother owns a shop and aims for a cycle time of eight to 10 days. To reach that, he tries to keep an optimal WIP of 800 to 1,000 hours of work in the shop.
“When we get over 1,000, we're going to have an 11-, 12-, 13-day cycle time, which is bad,” Trapp said.
“There is a directly proportional relationship between the amount of vehicles and WIP and your cycle time,” Trapp said. “If you can output only 100 hours a day, if you have 800 hours, it'll take eight days in cycle time. If it's 100 hours a day and there's 1,000, it'll take 10 days in cycle time.
“A lot of shop owners don't understand that, and so they love to fill their lot with cars, thinking that's what keeps their techs motivated,” Trapp said. “That is just going to kill their cycle time and lead to more cars in the hospital and more upset, unhappy customers.”
A “production walk” at the end of every day is helpful, Trapp said, continuing to use the example of 100 total hours of production across all departments per day.
“We want to look for 100 hours we can pull from reassembly to detail to deliver tomorrow. We want to look in the paint shop and see what can we pull from paint into reassembly,” Trapp said. “I'm planning ahead because I may have two or three heavy hits that are going to take a couple of days. So what other jobs can I get around them so that allows the techs to keep working on the heavies?”
A separate “production huddle” around noon each day can also help, to look at how many hours of production have moved between departments so far.
“If we're at 50, and everybody's moved 50, we're good,” Trapp said. “But if one department — say, reassembly — is way behind, we may need to pull people from disassembly or from body to try and make up that.”
Setting and Achieving Quality Standards
Trapp recommended keeping quality control sheets for individual departments limited to five or six important points, rather than a long list. “That's just way too many details,” he said.
He also believes in setting quality standards, and reinforcing them frequently.
“The big key here is four positives for every one negative,” Trapp said. “You've got to catch them doing it right. Inspecting as many cars as you can as they move from department to department is essential to building a positive culture to then say, ‘OK, in this case, we didn't quite meet our standard. What could we have done better? What could we do in the future?’ So we get the positive feedback that we're all looking for.”
Production Managers
Production managers should take time every day to “walk around and look for ways that you can remove barriers,” Trapp said, like working with the parts department on alternative sourcing for backordered parts that are holding up a repair, identifying equipment not performing up to standard, or employees who could be moved to other tasks.
Production managers should also talk to the techs to find out what the manager could do to help them to improve efficiency.
“Whether it be equipment, it could be training, it could be communication, it could be getting parts to you,” Trapp said. “But your job is to really be a manager and listen to your people. Get to know them and get them to give you their ideas. Any good consultant will tell you the best ideas are the ones that come from the people that are working in the process.”
It’s also on the manager to ensure employees understand the “why” behind their expectations. The best approach is to ask the employee how they think something should be done.
“You hope that the little voice in their head is your voice, and you've been telling them the what and the why for a long time,” Trapp said. “And now they've internalized it, and they see that as what is obvious to them, and they see the why.”
If the employee has never been told why something is done the way it is, it’s on the manager to answer that question and explain how it benefits the employee as well.
“The culture has to be, ‘I'm very willing to answer that why question at any time,’” Trapp said. “Don't see it like your kids talking back, see it like your kids are going to do a much better job.”
The Importance of Continued Training
Trapp said collision shops should budget a minimum of 2% of sales on education opportunities, both online and in-person.
“Have a development plan with each technician,” he said. “I'm talking from senior techs all the way back to your basic techs. Everybody should have a personal development plan.
“Education [ROI] generally has a little J curve, but it generally has a positive effect on performance,” he added. “That investment in training will pay off, often 20% more than what you're putting into it.”
Techs will also be more loyal to an employer who fosters their personal growth, which means less turnover, Trapp pointed out.
“You're going to be the employer of choice,” Trapp said. “If you're hoping to get that done by just grinding it out and saying, ‘Hey, we just need to work a little harder,’ that's not going to cut it in 2025.
“I call it feeding your eagles,” he said. “When I go to training myself, as the owner, that eagle’s looking over everybody's shoulders, pointing out what's going wrong. That eagle’s watching out to make sure we're doing all the same things that you told them when you were there. They're your most important asset.
“And I find that shops sometimes take their eagles for granted. Don't allow that to happen.”
What Numbers Should Shops Track?
Trapp said he’s a “big believer in gross margin,” and shoots for 45% at a minimum.
“Some of my top shops can achieve 50% gross,” he said. “So you're saying, ‘Well, that's not possible.’ Yes it is.”
It’s important to make sure employees understand there’s a profit and loss (P&L) on every job: the job cost report.
“It's going to show them what decisions they made along the way to basically fix the car in a safe and efficient manner, but also to think about profitability as they do it,” Trapp said.
“I'm not saying ever sacrifice a safe and proper repair,” he added. “What we're saying is we want to fix that car safe and proper, but we want that score to reflect that.”
Owners should share some of the gross with employees in bonuses or other incentives, “because when you do better, they do better,” Trapp said.
Other important KPIs include cycle time, techs’ efficiency, WIP versus optimal WIP, and repair versus replace. “Whenever we can safely repair a part, we want to,” he said.
Quality is another big one. “We want to catch all those quality issues in the shop…before the final quality control, so the customer never has to come back,” Trapp said.
Celebrating Wins
Shop managers need to set KPI targets, and then celebrate when the shop hits them, Trapp said.
“Don't make up some pie-in-the sky-thing. You're looking for something that they can reasonably achieve, but it's going to stretch them just a little,” Trapp said. “Then give them the support that helps them get that stretch. And when they don't get it, reinforce the things that they did well and ask them what we could have done better.”
A daily cadence is also important. In addition to the production walk and mid-day huddle, Trapp said there should be a daily release meeting to make a plan for the next two days of vehicle deliveries.
Finally, regularly communicate with employees about how they are performing — for instance, when handing out paychecks, Trapp said.
“Have that moment, and say, ‘Dude, your target was 40 hours, you did 44 this week, that means that you did 10% better than we even thought you could do, so that's amazing,’” he said. “That's so often missed.”
While employees like working for shops that have targets, the challenge is to not make them feel like managers only care about the numbers.
“You have to mix in the human side, the positive customer comments that you get,” Trapp said.
Trapp said a late friend, Steve Schoolcraft, taught him to call customers who scored the shop a 10 out of 10 on a CSI survey and ask what they specifically liked about their repair, and then to share those stories with the techs.
“Those stories will have a huge impact on behavior, because they realize that they did that. They made those customers that happy,” Trapp said. “And the managers that take the time to build that into their daily lives will really see the fruits of their labor.”
Capital Planning
Shops should have a five- or 10-year capital plan for improvements and replacements of everything from tools to the parking lot pavement. Trapp recommended budgeting a certain percentage of sales to fund that plan, so everyone has a number in mind when prioritizing capital spending.
“Everything has a useful life,” he said. “I see that shops wait till it breaks, and then it's too late, because now the shop is shut down and that department is no longer functioning.”
Having a capital plan allows shop management to schedule maintenance or replacement for times when work is slower.
Trapp also suggested shops look at equipment that isn’t getting enough use and perhaps selling it while it still has value.
For instance, he said shops in a performance group had less than $1,000 in frame labor on several repair orders, which means “these cars are getting totaled at an alarming rate,” Trapp said.
“Those expensive frame racks sitting in the corner, there's one, two, three of them, are shot,” he said. “I've thought about telling some stores, ‘Hey, pull a machine or two out of the shop because that's tying up space.’”
Key Takeaways
Setting goals with techs is crucial. “The techs need to know what we're expecting of them. They need to know that goal, and you need to review it with them and then listen to them and saying, ‘If you were going to move the needle, what would you do?’” Trapp said.
Reducing the amount of time techs wait — be it for parts, a tool, or the next vehicle in their department — is also important.
Trapp said it’s inefficient to have techs do OEM repair procedure research, write supplements or complete tasks related to documentation.
“The tech should be working with a tool on the car,” Trapp said. “As often as I can, I want to try and take that pencil out of their hand and keep the tool in their hand and support them. This is an opportunity where you're going to use that support resource to really get the tech paid for everything they're doing, and get them so they're back working on cars.”
Abby Andrews