E-Commerce Has Arrived
Can e-commerce solutions truly improve dispatch, load leveling and cycle time to impact throughput and profits? In a word, yes.
Use Your Clout, You Lout
“When will dealership body shops – with their captive clientele – wise up and stop making concessions to insurance companies? e.g.: Charge the same labor rate as in their mechanical shop. Their mechanical shops don’t work with junkyard or jip parts. Why agree to do anything different in the body shop?” asks P. Michael Riffert, president, Engle’s Frame and Body Service, Ephrate, Pa.
Better Pay for Better Work
While many shop owners say it’s not good business to pay more money to a less productive tech, I say stop thinking of it as paying more for less — and start thinking of it as paying more for better.
Operations Profile: Operating Smoothly
Keeping a collision repair shop operating smoothly takes a lot of work. How do all of you cope with such daily issues as labor rates, insurers wanting discounts and poor fitting replacement crash parts? One day at a time.
Operations Profile
That was then … In the year 1906, Baltimore County Commissioners came up with a sure-fire way to stop speeders: They gave police officer Noah Walker permission to shoot at cars when drivers violated the speed limit. "Slow down, or I’ll shoot!" When Walker fired at Yates Pennington’s car, Pennington filed charges against him –
Personnel Profile
That was then … An unthinkable thing happened on Jan. 14, 1914: Henry Ford had the audacity to raise Ford Motor Company’s minimum wage to $5 a day – and then, as if that weren’t enough, he allocated $10 million of the $25 million in company profits for his workers. This will ruin the industry,
Building a Case for Industrialization
When your competition industrializes their operations, their production efficiency will improve dramatically – possibly 37 to 50 percent in a single shift. With such fierce competition, can you afford to continue doing something because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”?
Associations: Time to Join or a Waste of Time?
Opinions vary regarding the repair industry’s national associations, but one thing is certain: The industry has a wide range of national associations, each with differing beliefs, views and goals. Our examination of the industry’s national groups may help you decide if one coincides with your own convictions
The Fraud Triangle
Anticipating possibly getting something for nothing – and convincing themselves they’re entitled to it – repairers, insurers and consumers commit fraud on a daily basis, assuming that if they don’t get caught, no one gets hurt. But nothing comes without a cost.
Halfway Around the World in One Article
After BodyShop Business’ roving reporter Mike Lawrence returned from his two-day, 17-country whirlwind trip – in which he studied collision repair markets around the globe – he determined that while each country’s market is unique, it also sounds strangely familiar.