Gavin spent some time with Luis, Triage Manager at Mainline Auto Body. Gavin wanted to find out how Planning Plus affects his role and the overall pull of the car through the workshop.
How does Planning Plus interact with your role?
My role here is to bring everything in, from our GDR process to the vehicles that are not safe to drive or are towed in. We disassemble everything in here, we diagnose all the damage inside and out and do a full, accurate blueprint. Once complete we then send it off for approval. It then goes into production when all parts are checked in. Planning Plus has been a big, big key in this because, all over the house, everybody is looking at Planning Plus and they can see the jobs that are in process and what is coming in.
How does Planning Plus resonate for you within the Triage Department?
Well, for me, it is a big help because I can see cars that are coming in. I can see if we have contacted the customer and stuff like that. The one thing that I really do like about it the most is that anybody in the house can see it. It is so easy, so friendly to work with, and it is a big visual indicator of where everything is in the day. So that’s kind of what helps me out a lot.
Your mobile cart is one of the new additions to Mainline. They have two or three of these now? And these are an amazing system. How do they help you?
The best thing about it is that you are looking at the car as you are preparing the blueprint. You are not sitting down somewhere looking at a monitor, mounted on a wall, it is mobile. You can take it anywhere you want. Mainline is big on lean and two second lean and 5S.
What difference does all those processes make to you and your part of the business?
Well, it makes me think about lean almost every day and things we can do to make things better, more efficient and to do things smarter. After a while you start catching on, it just kind of sticks to you. It is funny because when you think about it, you kind of take the stuff home and think why am I doing this thing twice? Why aren’t we doing it once? When you see lean coming together with 30 to 40 employees, it makes it a pretty big difference.
So, efficiency wise, how would you say Planning Plus has contributed to lean improvements?
The business has grown, we have added a couple of employees, but we have doubled productivity. It takes a team to make everything nice and organized, but it is so easy to work with and it is just big visual indicators. There is just so much you can do with it, from all the vehicle information, customers information, where the status is of the job and from parts to dispatch. It is a big, big help, it really is.
You have been here for three years. Do you think you will still be here in three years’ time?
Hell yeah, this is a great place to work.
Are your employees as happy and productive at work as Luis is? Planning Plus software helps your team be able to be more efficient and also have more responsibility. This helps to increase car turnover which in turn helps to increase profits!
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