Boating Industry

February 2014

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{ SERVICE } MARKET FOCUS SECTION from the company's locations including open work orders, daily shop goals, efficiency and productivity. Monitoring the department's data stream has the added benefit of motivating techs by showing service staff how the company's other departments are doing. "We want everybody to know we're measuring it, we're monitoring it, we're managing it," Bohling said. "You see all facilities on one sheet of paper very quickly, very easily." Beyond data, the company focuses on balancing duties and staffing to keep everybody moving at all times, while managers can focus on productivity from afar. "An individual has the ability to be selfefficient managing their time all day long — that's efficiency — but a manager has the ability to control productivity," he said. "Productivity is the amount of work you have available and how well it's scheduled, productivity means you have support staff making sure those boats are in the service 42 | Boating Industry | February 2014 P40x44-BI14FEB-MFService-dv.indd 42 bays without the technicians twiddling their thumbs waiting for the boat to arrive." Helping Bohling determine efficiency and productivity levels, as well as what type of staffing to add, he focuses on a "days in service" metric that tells him when a boat arrives, how long it's been sitting on the lot and its repair status. Days in service reports have reduced the problem of a customer's boat getting lost in the yard, overlooked by staff and management. "Our goal is [to get] every single boat out within five days," he added. "I don't care if they had an appointment or not, they're going to come in and be out, and in order to accomplish that in five days, a whole lot of [boats] have to be in and out on the same day and that's the approach that we need to take." Being located in constrained, urban areas, physical organization of the company's facilities is an ongoing challenge. A remodeling of its main Seattle service department was completed in 2000, and a major redevelopment of its Bellevue facility is set to begin this summer. It will provide all technicians with covered work bays, and improve the organization of boats that have to flow through the grounds in a carefully orchestrated process. Bohling said that even though its Seattle facility is located on just less than an acre of land — the smallest boat dealership out of his Cobalt 20 group, the facility produces as much work and unit sales as much larger facilities — a tribute to the organization's carefully orchestrated efficiency. Becoming more efficient in such a situation means building vertically, especially with boat storage. Seattle Boat Company gives its dry rack storage the sexier name of SkyLaunch Marina, which it will be adding to its Bellevue location in the coming year. "There's no glamour in rack storage, so we call it SkyLaunch Marinas," Bohling said. "We know that on average a boat in our SkyLaunch Marina delivers over $1,400 annually to our service department. I've got it broken down to how much fuel will go to our fueling opera- www.BoatingIndustry.com 1/8/14 12:59 PM

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