A GPS allows us to see the condition of the roads and our surroundings, and helps us detect upcoming obstacles, the fastest routes are, and where it is safe to drive. This helps us stay ahead of situations.

We can also apply this method as a business policy by following these steps:

• Learn the conditions of our surroundings
• Decide how to act
• Stay ahead of potential pitfalls
• Detect available options and apply solutions

“We must create a company culture based on the organized management of our business, with sound processes to carry out our daily operations so as to reduce mistakes and delays. We should also focus on prevention in order to avoid harmful situations such as abundant obsolete inventory and uncollectible accounts”. Jorgelina Perez, Autologica Senior Consultant.

Prevention and correction reports

A good dealer management system should provide reports that helps the dealership manage large volumes of information, recommends the best way to prevent damaging situations, and leads us to quick and efficient solutions. This article analyzes some useful reports for the parts and service departments.

Time in Inventory Report (Parts)

How many parts do we have in the warehouse that aren’t being sold? The answer would surprise you, as most dealers have large amounts of money invested in obsolete parts. What are the effects of this situation? Invested money that devaluates, insurance and warehouse expenses, etc. This can be prevented.

With a Time in Inventory report, the dealer can learn how much they have invested in dead parts inventory, and also which parts are close to becoming a part of that problem. With this information, the Parts Manager can adopt discounted sales strategies to move those parts, transfer them to a different store where they have a higher chance of being sold, tell Service Advisors to promote them, etc.

Workshop Occupancy Report (Service)

The Workshop Occupancy Report allows us to detect how many hours out of the workshop’s total available hours technicians use to carry out jobs.

In some cases, dealers thinks that 60 to 70% is an ideal value; in other cases, they don’t even know their occupancy rate. The truth is that we must measure this value and do our best to reach 80%… i.e. a larger proportion of workshop hours should be applied to jobs.

Measuring this value on a monthly basis can help us detect the reasons for a low productivity rate in the workshop, learn the weaknesses of our team, and avoid a drop in workshop profitability. We can then take corrective measures before we start to lose money.

“When we detect a process or area that is not working properly, we must adopt solutions to correct and repair them. A good DMS can provide reports and features that help a dealer fix situations in few steps and avoid relapse”. Jorgelina Perez, Autologica Senior Consultant.

Auto and equipment dealership managers that regularly use these reports preside over successful departments because they work in a more organized, productive, and profitable way.