March 2021

MARCH 2021 AFTERMARKET 11 www.aftermarketonline.net the technicians have loved it because it’s not all my ideas.” It’s a process then? “I am asking them to suggest ideas, to make the workshop more efficient. It’s coming from the front line, rather from the top down. It makes it easier to implement change when it is them suggesting it, rather than being a dictatorship with me saying ‘do this – do that’. Instead, it’s them saying ‘I think this way is better’.” We couldn’t quite imagine a Geordie dictator, we suggested. Martyn laughed: “You should have seen our workshop before we started this. We had four shelves-worth of stock, and we managed to get it down to about one and a half. We had about £3,500 worth of stock just sitting there. Now it is about £1,000. It might not seem like a lot but it can be used elsewhere.” While Rebecca at Yardley’s has taken the bulbs into the office, we wondered how Martyn was dealing with it: “If you take bulbs as an example, these are being held in the main store. I run this, and it is next to the computer, so if somebody needs a bulb, I select the bulb, book it onto the system and then the technician takes the bulb.” Some people would call this micro- managing the situation. Martyn disagreed: “It’s not micro- management as far as I am concerned – it’s about being conscious of what we are actually using and what we are spending. If they need fluids for example, that is already pre-booked out on the system, and we know ahead of time what we need. It is really about knuckling down on the just-in-time, not stocking 50 bulbs. Instead, you are only stocking about 10.” Of course we have our wonderful factors to thank for the miracle: “We have one factor 45 minutes away, and another 30 minutes away. Bulbs are cheap as chips nowadays, so I don’t understand why people need to stock them so much.” Martyn added: “I have had some people ask what if a car fails its MOT on a bulb, and the car then has to wait for a bulb to come, to which I replied, how would you know that car was going to fail before it came in? You have no idea.” Final thoughts It’s all too easy to let money slip through your fingers in this way – look at how quickly £1,000 disappeared, and no one noticed until it had happened, and that was just on one small type of product. Using the right systems in-house, and really taking advantage of the way suppliers work today could be a way to work differently. Considering the level of continuing investment needed to keep a garage up-to-date, using capital in a more positive way could make a real difference to your business. www.aftermarketonline.net You would pick up if the discs and pads were not there – it’s the little things that get overlooked ” Best update yet As we have seen, today’s garage management systems can provide a highly detailed level of insight around stock control. Angus MacKinnon is one of the UK’s largest Bosch Car Service Centre groups. The business, based at sites in Uttoxeter, Stoke, Burton, Lichfield, Stafford, Cannock, Ashbourne and Derby, has been using the TechMan system to its full effect. Stuart MacKinnon, MD at Angus MacKinnon, said: “We’re in really difficult times at the moment and we’ve been dealing staff self- isolation on-and-off for nearly a year now. It’s thanks to TechMan that we’ve been able to keep on top of tasks and maintain efficiencies even despite everything that’s currently happening in the world. “The biggest driver for any workshop is labour sales but our previous system didn’t offer a solution for that. It should be a priority for every workshop because the more labour you sell, the more parts you sell.” For parts, users can query stock levels, create purchase orders and sell too. LKQ Euro Car Parts Catalogue with electronic ordering, was recently rolled out in a TechMan update. Its inclusion makes everything eminently trackable. “The Euro Car Parts integration is excellent,” Stuart observed. “We can seek stock levels from Stoke-on-Trent, our main supplier, making the ordering process much slicker. When you order a part through the job card, it creates a purchase order on the invoice which can be linked back to the job.” The system means the stock side is always well-controlled: “We don’t order anything on the phone without a purchase order now and if it’s done online the purchase order is generated automatically. It has to be TechMan’s best update yet because it stops leakages of rogue parts and pre-populates cost prices, reducing the risk or user error.” For more information visit www.techmangms.com