Another Step Towards Improved Technician Efficiency!
How times have changed! Indeed, how cars (and all things automotive) have changed too! It’s not too long ago that the labour time for carrying out a job was not recorded, or if it was, it was a manual entry on the
Job card and Invoice. With Gerry Merrick’s foresight and the knowledge that, among other things, improved efficiencies would add value to the bottom line, it was only natural that he would investigate and develop a system to allow labour times to be recorded and used for the betterment of all dealers. In my time with Avonbrook, I have seen the barcode scanning process embraced by technicians. And this is still working very well today! It satisfies all requirements for Attended, Allocated, Productive and Billed reports.
With new technologies and new requirements, we developed Workshop Touch a few years ago. This allowed multiple stations for clocking, without the need for scanners. It also gave better visibility to service advisors and managers. However, both these clocking processes still require the Technician to leave the work area, to clock on and off each Job. There is a reluctance, to clock on to individual incidents, as a result. If there is a need to check Service History, it also requires time to get the information. These all contribute additional time to Jobs and a reduction of inefficiency.
“Time and Tide Wait for No Man” is a phrase attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer and “If you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards” is a quote by Mikhail Gorbachev. Gerry took these words, as a reason to embrace Mobile Applications and move Fortuna to the next level. We live in an age, where smartphones, tablets and apps have become the norm. So, the question was asked - how could we capture as much of the administration side of a technicians job, and put it in a format that would improve their working day? Enter Fortuna TEC
Technicians are used to collecting their Job cards from the Service Department, going through the work required, scanning on to the first incident, maybe checking the Service history and carrying out the Vehicle Health Check, before getting to the task at hand. We needed a way to streamline this so that all this information was available to the technician. The arrival of the COVID-19 and the global pandemic added weight to the need to streamline these task
s. The use of the App, provides for a greater level of COVID compliance, as it eliminates the chances of technicians congregating at the scanning terminal. In short, it provides for a better socially distanced working environment.
Our Scheduler option in Workshop is designed to help the workshop controller to allocate jobs to the technicians. It provides a quick and easy way to adapt to the working day, moving and adjusting jobs as required. With the addition of Fortuna TEC, it had become the perfect vehicle (pardon the pun) to pass the work to the technician. All additions and adjustments automatically update the work tab on the App. From the technician's point of view, they will download the app to phone or tablet and enter their email address and password. The worklist that has been scheduled will display in the same order as they appear on the scheduler. The vehicle Model, Registration details, Job number and Required time are displayed for each entry. The estimated time to complete the job is also shown. Selecting a job will display the list of tasks (or incidents) to be completed. From here, they can now SCAN ON to the Job. Other options available to the Tech, on this screen, are to view Service History and enter the Odometer Reading. If a VHC system is not being used, the app allows for existing damage to be recorded, Tyre measurements to be updated and Upsell observations to be added.
On completion of an Incident, a write up is entered. This can be spoken and automatically transcribed or entered using the keyboard. This is saved to the Invoicing screen, where it can be easily added to the Customer invoice. Additional incidents, which may have been added after the Job has started, will be displayed automatically.
This is a great opportunity for more accurate measurement, as the time taken for each incident is now recorded separately. On completion of all tasks, the Job disappears from the Work List and it will change colour on the scheduler screen, to indicate that it can now be invoiced. This is only the start for Fortuna TEC, as we have great plans which include recording Travel time.
A Mobile App for a mobile workshop!!!
If you would like to find out more about Fortuna TEC or have a demonstration, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Denis McCarthy