insight release v43

Throughout my professional career, I have been fortunate to visit various workshops, ranging from small independent businesses to large dealerships and dealer groups, as well as various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in different countries. This gives me perspective to articulate and observe criteria on how dealers operate process-wise with workshop resources.

Let's begin by addressing some important questions:

• What is the recommended process and technique to plan workshop resources effectively?
• Can we clearly articulate process dependencies, limits, and pros and cons?
• What is the impact of different booking processes on workshop utilization?

I want to answer those questions in my next article and explain the details and my views.

My note: The article and information I have provided are based on my observations and involvement in a software design group. Our team was responsible for creating workshop planning tools tailored to dealer processes. I used this experience extensively. I have added notes for each topic to clarify essential details further and highlight key points. These notes may be helpful to you.

Terminology
Let's start with basic definitions to ensure we're on the same page and using the correct terminology. This is important as there is a lack of documentation in the field. Secondly, to understand the concept, we must introduce the main players in the “game.”
There is a simple equation. On the one hand, there is a need to schedule multiple service appointments for various service jobs, while on the other hand, the workshop has limited resources to carry out the work. The primary responsibility of Workshop Resource Management is to efficiently utilize, organize, schedule, and dispatch workshop resources and balance available resources against demand.