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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/74170
FEATURE STORY By Jim Yount • Stop working on customers' equipment and make a delivery. Fact: It's costing you $70 per hour to make a delivery. • Stop working on customers' equipment and assemble equipment for the sales department. Fact: It's costing you $70 per hour to assemble equipment. I realize these tasks must be done, but there are other ways to get them accomplished. With a little planning and training, a part-time employee can do the same tasks for perhaps $15 per hour. Other truths impacting the bottom line • When technicians are asked to stop working on customers' equipment to perform other tasks, they lose their efficiency and concentration, and become demoralized. • When technicians are not held accountable for working at a measured level of efficiency, hours billed to customers, or a company work order, most work at their own pace. • Low take-home wages and lack of benefits are a major factor impacting billing efficiency. As long as these truths exist, the service CREATING A PROFIT-CENTERED MINDSET Third article in a series the time to enter your numbers at the top of the Service Department Efficiency Analysis Ratio (SDEAR) chart on the line identified as "My Company." I trust you are still thinking about your efficiency. From the past article, I also want to remind you of the following words spoken to me by one of my mentors: "Jim, the only way you keep score in business is to count the money." And counting the money is at the core of this article, titled "Creating a profit-centered mindset," as I continue this series on taking a service department from a cost center to a profit center. A 16 t the end of the previous article in this series ("Mathematics and money," May 2012 OPE), I recommended that you take INCREASING SHOP PROFITABILITY (PART III): Truths and their negative impact on efficiency Assuming your service department's hourly labor rate is $70 and you ask a technician to do the following: • Stop working on customers' equipment and unload trucks. Fact: It's costing you $70 per hour to unload trucks. department's profits will not be sufficient to do the following: • Hire additional people and stop interrupting technicians • Pay better wages • Provide better benefits • Pay its fair share of operating expenses The best practice for producing high levels of department efficiency is to hold each technician accountable for personal billing efficiency. The best practice for producing happier technicians is to allow them to do what they were trained and hired to do: work on equipment. And if possible, assign no other duties to them. A technician's major The best practice for producing high levels of department efficiency is to hold each technician accountable for personal billing efficiency. OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com Illustrations ©istockphoto.com/VLADGRIN.