LWS: Service Labor Efficiency

Labor efficiency and labor quality are the two most important performance measures for supervision of a service department. The way in which you measure labor efficiency leads you to be able to manage labor efficiency.  Detailed definitions and calculations, as well as tried and true methods to achieve high labor efficiency are the hallmarks of this program.

When employees are given specific direction the results are impressive. Without it, the results can be disastrous.  Billing efficiency, or the amount of time that can be billed versus paid, is not the same as labor efficiency. Labor efficiency is owned by the technician, but is directly influenced by the methods used to schedule work by the first level supervisor. This brings together inspections, job segmentation, standard jobs coding, and standard job times. Fundamentals of scheduling then can be applied and allow the performance of the work by a service department to become predictable.

Finally, the elements that interfere with good labor efficiency are exposed and suggestions developed for each so that they can be overcome. The customer will benefit greatly from predictable completion dates which will be the “intended” consequence of this program for all service management and supervision.

LWS: Service Flat Rate Standard Times

Customers want to know how much the repair work will cost before they approve the job you will perform. We have to provide this important information. In order to do this, we must manage our repairs with job codes. We must determine standard jobs, and then track them every time we perform them. In this way, we can develop a “standard time” which is different than average time. You will learn the secrets of flat rating in this very detailed program.

The job code structure is where this begins. The manufacturers provide a job code for use with warranty jobs. This is the same logic that dealers must use to manage the repair and maintenance jobs. The code needs to be easy to understand and search out in a file or on a system. Once we have the job codes, then the inspections and job structures need to follow the same logic. How to develop the job codes and then utilize them to develop and manage history is a critical element of this program.

The determination of the standard time is also misunderstood by most. It is NOT about the average time to perform the job. Learn the perils of assuming all the risk on jobs, and how to provide for those risks with standard times. This program will be of value to anyone in management who wants to move away from a job shop structure.

LWS: Service Shop Floor Scheduling

Our customers all want predictable, consistent, high quality service work. But, equally important to them is a completion date for the work you are doing for them. You need to be able to provide a completion date, and you need to meet that date. To do that requires very specific activities and deliveries. Parts, labor, supplies, and outside purchases all are involved. This program will help you learn how to establish and manage shop schedules. To date, in most surveys on customer attitudes, customers indicate that they want “honesty” in the top five. That should tell us that completion dates, which are rarely met, is an area that needs a lot of attention.

This program leads to the items that are required in developing a schedule that can be met for all customers and internal departments. The typical rationales used to explain away why completion dates are rarely met are exposed and dealt with in a manner that allows acceptance of the need to change approach.

Each day, each technician needs to be given eight hours of labor, but no more than eight hours of labor. This requires that each job have work elements that are never more than eight hours in length, so that the answer to the question “will you complete everything I gave you to do today?” will be either yes or no. If yes, then the schedule is intact. If the answer is no – that will be dealt with in this program.

LWS: Service Standards of Performance

What does it look like when it is right? Performance in a Service Department must maximize efficiency, maximize quality, and satisfy customers.  The first step to understanding and accepting what needs to be done is to have meaningful, measureable and achievable standards. How to develop your own standards and yet continue to reach for excellence is the theme in this program.

Individual employees want to do a good job, yet many do not know what doing a good job entails. This is a fundamental requirement of good management: communicating performance expectations and measures to the employees. In this program we will cover the fundamentals exposed by Patrick Lencioni in his important book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.”  Anonymity, Irrelevance and Immeasureability are the three symptoms of this disease which leads to the “Sunday Blues.”

Each employee can also deliver more than they think they can, yet each is fundamentally lazy. Leadership methods to entice or motivate employees to deliver good performance for coworkers, customers and the Company will be discussed in this extremely important program.

LWS: Service Market Capture

The parts and service businesses within the construction equipment Industries has never had a precise method to calculate the share of the labor market for a specific brand. To some degree this has allowed the service business to operate without a critical performance measure being in place.

This program married the market potential, which is covered in another class, with the actual sales for a dealership for a specific brand. The market potential model allows a dealer to calculate the potential consumption of labor on specific machines. That, together with the actual service sales, allows a calculation to be done arithmetically that determines the percentage of a customer business obtained by a dealer.

This class provides a detailed methodology to calculate the share of the market the dealer obtains. This is the market capture rate that the dealer obtains in the labor business. Ideally, we would be able to perform this calculation by machine model.

Similarly, we touch on the “mean time to failure (MTF)” statistics provided by the OEM’s for their products. With territory potential, market capture we can drive market coverage methods which with the MTF the sales force can be targeting customer needs in a timely manner. This program covers all the details and methods required to perform the calculations required to measure market capture.

LWS: Service Delivery Systems

In the service business, we communicate with the marketplace in a variety of methods. With the telephone, with people walking into your store, some customers and some use the internet. But the variations of the work don’t stop there: we also have to contend with a variety of “delivery” systems as well. These are not transportation systems. This is a customer service delivery system.

We process work orders for our customers and we all know that not all customers are created equal. Some customers spend a lot of money with you and deserve to get special treatment. Well, we also have some processes that are cost intensive but also some that are very efficient. These are the customer service delivery systems.

From the customer who does not know what is needed, to the customer with their own mechanics, there are wide ranges of differences. Each of the delivery systems has a different cost component, and that can lead us to provide differentiated services dependent on the delivery system that is chosen by the customer. We explore all aspects of the delivery systems we offer to the market in this important program.

LWS: Service Balanced Scorecard

In the service business we communicate with the marketplace in a variety of methods. We deal with various systems, manually and technologically. We have a responsibility to serve and retain customers while at the same time we have to make money for the business. This is a complicated business.

To assist us in managing the business and help us implement our company strategy we use a business tool that is called the “Balanced Scorecard.” The Balanced Scorecard was developed in the 1990s, designed for use in the planning and implementation of a company’s strategy. The scorecard looks at your business from four directions; finance, internal, innovation and customer. From this vantage point the company can develop a strategy as part of their operating plan.  These plans are meant to help a company achieve its goals.  If a plan cannot be agreed upon and effectively executed, a business cannot effectively reach its goals.

In this class, you will learn the ins and outs of this valuable tool, and the costs we pay in our business when we fail to execute our plans for success in our market.

LWS: Service Leadership

The management and supervision in business is in many cases misunderstood. You manage process but you have to lead people. Often, we get consumed by our need to improve our processes. Since the 1980’s with the “Japanese” continuous improvement movement we have been obsessed with eliminating non-value added, tasks and processes. But what have we done to inspire management to improve their ability to lead their employees.?

Leadership is a complicated function. It involves compassion, courage, trust, integrity, commitment, loyalty, inspiration, and communication. A true leader will take people to places that they would not have gone to on their own. This program explores the true meaning of leadership and talks about differing leadership styles and their impact on performance.

Leadership has to ensure that the day to day operations are performing and at the same time they must focus on the future. They also have to understand and accept how important managing change is to improvement. They have to be able to look at their businesses with “fresh eyes” to ensure that they can identify and eliminate their “sacred cows.” This is a critical class for anyone in a leadership position.

LWS: Service Change

Dealing with change is one of the biggest challenges we face in our lives. It will also be one of the largest challenges you face in creating value for customers and remain relevant in the supply chain. Jack Welsh is famous for saying “When the world around you is changing faster than you are…. the end is near.

Look around. Look what has happened in only just the past two decades; Cell Phones, Smart Appliances, Artificial Intelligence to name just a few. Look also at the changes in the equipment we support; computerization of componentry, telematics, etc. Now look at your business internally. What changes have you made in how you do things? This program covers all of these issues.

It is critical that we know how to lead through these periods of rapid change. We have to be able to communicate effectively. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And how we get everyone committed to these changes is covered in detail in this comprehensive class.

Managers must understand how to engage their team, and lead the business, through change. You will learn how to effectively manage change, become consistent in identifying and resolving critical change issues and innovating in how you do the work and find new and different ways to grow is covered in detail. Don’t miss this important class.

LWS: Service Art of the Possible

The work in a Service Business within the Construction Equipment Industry is complex and filled with details. It is within this environment that our employees work day in and day out. These people who I call your “heroes” are the warriors that make your business a success.

The technicians have a forward workload that leaves little room for inefficiency or ineffectiveness. In the shop or the field whether for repair or maintenance or rebuilds the work never ends. Your “heroes” do incredible work keeping up with this activity. They work in difficult working conditions, they deal with specialized equipment and tooling, they do inspections, prepare equipment for sale and make ready equipment for rent and lease. They get to the end of the day and take a deep breathe to indicate that they made it through another day. They deal with the Art of the Possible every single day.

In this class we will explore the major pillars that comprise your business; Buildings, Inventory, People, Technology, Purchasing and Employee Development. We will then apply and show you how to apply the Art of the Possible.