The parts department of an OPE dealer-
ship is the profit center where more peo-
ple are involved and the most transactions
take place every day. If you just allow the
parts department to be run without really
truly managing it, you're really making the
decision to allow a large part of your busi-
ness to be a thorn in your side rather than
your flagship. Owners need to be as obses-
sive as possible about this part of the busi-
ness because your reputation and overall
health of your business are at stake. What
separates you from big box stores, shade-
tree mechanics, and other OPE pretend-
ers? Your parts department, which com-
bined with your service department, gives
you a competitive advantage over all types
of competition. I will talk more about the
service department in the third part of this
series, but know that these two areas make
for a mighty combination when they work
well together.
How do you manage your parts de-
partment to be more efficient and serve
your customers the way it should? Here
are four ways:
#1 Serve the largeSt
cuStomer well
The first rule of managing your parts de-
partment is that you must realize who your
biggest customer is: the service department!
The service department is often treated
like the smallest customer by the parts de-
partment. I have seen technicians waiting
behind customers to get a part! On mul-
tiple levels, that is bad. Technicians should
never have to wait on a part or leave their
service bay to get one. It's the parts depart-
ment's job to pull parts and deliver them
to the service department. If you don't have
the ability to do this now, then you need to
hire an employee to be responsible for do-
ing this on a part-time basis. Inefficiency
exists when a job can't be done because it is
dependent on a poor process. You need to
fill this hole in your process immediately.
When I go to dealerships and help them, the
relationship between the parts and service
departments is one of the hardest things for
them to change because of years of operat-
ing the wrong way. Instead of the parts and
service departments working together, there
is a negative relationship, and it causes inef-
ficiencies in both departments.
Some owners cause problems by al-
lowing technicians from the service de-
partment to pull their own parts. This is a
very bad solution to the problem. No one
should touch the parts inventory other
18 MARCH 2015 outDoor Power eQuIPmeNt www.outdoorpowerequipment.com
Feature Story | Best Practices
Profit Center SerieS
(Part ii): PartS
Second in a three-part series:
Leadership and management are key
■ By JeFF SheetS
When The Mower Shop in Fort Smith, Ark., began to outgrow its space, it turned to this comprehensive storage and service solution from Lista. (Photo courtesy of Lista)
