The Quest for Speed

by Dave Luehr

July 18, 2016
2:55 pm

I was recently involved in a friendly debate about speed. My friend, who is the owner of a successful collision repair business, asked me why I was always so obsessed with helping shops make repair jobs go through the shop faster than anyone else. He reasoned, “Why should I make cars go through my shop any faster than I already am? I am already the fastest shop in town with an average cycle time of just 6.5 days!” Pondering his question for a moment, I realized that maybe I did appear obsessed in that way to him and other people. I do love to go fast, but the truth of the matter is that I hate chaos and workflow disruptions even more than I love to go fast! It just happens that “fast” is often one of the results that happen when you run a shop the right way.

This conversation reminds me of another conversation I had several years ago when my friend and mentor, Ron Kuehn, told me that lean doesn’t always mean faster. I admit I was initially confused by his advice, but knowing that Ron was rarely wrong, I sat with it for a while and realized he was indeed right. Lean thinking involves the removal of waste from the value stream, but the focus is not on speed. When you are able to remove waste, the chaos decreases, the disruptions to flow disappear, and in many cases, cars do flow faster through your shop.

So my friends that think they are fast enough to keep up with the market demands and quit trying to improve because their cycle time is already fast enough to place them on the DRP leaderboard, I challenge you to consider your quest! I have seen very unhappy people that beat their people with a stick to get good cycle times and live in a constant environment of chaos, while others that have been focusing on the right things instead have a peaceful, enjoyable environment that pumps out cars consistently and without all the drama!

The real take-away here is to encourage you to never give up on your quest for improvement, even if you think your cycle time metrics are “good enough.” A commitment to continuous improvement, means never giving up on your quest to remove the chaos and constant flow interruptions that so many still consider a normal part of the collision repair business. As long as you consider supplements and chaos “normal” you are becoming complacent and not improving.

Never give up…. and as always, the team at Elite Body Shop Solutions is here to help!

It is very important to use a balanced approach when it comes to setting goals in order to spend time on all the important stuff that will bring real success in the long term, as well as in the short term. For example, if you take a myopic approach of only setting a financial goal, you could very well attain that goal, but at what costs? Several years ago, I was asked to help a collision repair shop that, during a series of very large hail storms in the area, was able to double its annual revenue for two consecutive years. They quickly doubled their staff with less than ideal employees, they quit performing the lean processes they had worked so hard on implementing, and they lost touch with their customers and their insurance partners. Sure they may have made a million bucks, but they literally destroyed over fifteen years of development almost overnight. They lost sight of all 5 pillars and only focused on one! Despite a strong effort to rebuild, this business was never able to reclaim its former glory, and soon sold out to a competitor.

Financial Health – What are your financial goals for your business? Financial goal setting is a must for any business. I recommend that goals in this pillar include financial forecasting, understanding financial considerations for expansion plans, building improvements or whatever. I like to include goals in this pillar that include learning the skills to produce and read financial statements. Like in the story of the doomed hail repair shop, it is good to make money, because it is the lifeblood of your business, but there are 4 other pillars to consider as well! If you choose to ignore the other pillars, as displayed in the diagram above, your potential is severely at risk and the roof will likely collapse!

Cultural Health – If financial health is lifeblood, then cultural health is the soul! The people in your organization are indeed the most important asset. In your work day, what are you doing to create the kind of culture that will ensure success for the long term? If you are not proactive about building the culture you want, you will end up with the culture you get, which may not be pretty. Include daily actions and goals that will enrich the company culture through learning new leadership skills, hiring the right people and losing the wrong ones. I also recommend that businesses continually look for talent even when they don’t immediately need them. I hear a lot of people complain that there is a technician shortage, but I only rarely see people taking a proactive approach to find and cultivate the right people over the long term.

Customer Sustainability – Clearly it is hard to make money, so what are you doing to make sure that the customers and your insurance partners love doing business with you? Customer sustainability is not only about making happy customers, but also making customers for life. You should proactively set goals and take actions that will continually improve your performance and customer loyalty to not only keep them coming back, but equally important raving about your business to all their friends and family.

Process Stability – A stable business is one that can produce a product or service with a high level of consistency and predictability. Continuous improvement is something that you have to proactively work on (“Continuously”). Goals and daily actions need to take place every day to make sure that you are implementing and sustaining processes that will continue to support your financial, cultural, and customer goals. Most of my clients set goals to create a written “playbook” and then implement it. Goals and actions can also be made to audit process or procedural standards, and provide additional training as needed.

Risk – Risk is one of those things people don’t want to talk about, or deal with until it comes back to bite them. Risk is the unpopular 5th pillar that requires you to take action towards making your business safe to work at, and with no damage being done to the environment. This is also the pillar that asks you to continually work towards understanding legal, and other human resource laws that could put your business in jeopardy. Finally, risk aversion also means that you must train your people to properly repair vehicles using the manufacturers recommended procedures, and performing quality control inspections to verify it.

If you can spend a little bit of time identifying what is important to your business by using the 5 pillars, you can take a balanced approach to being as successful as your imagination will allow! You will be working hard on the right things and not just working hard! The end result is that your business will yield repeat customers, happier employees, and bigger profits – while you will have less frustration, and experience a more valuable expenditure of your energy and attention.

Connect with an Elite Mentor to start implementing and balancing the 5 Pillars in your business!

About the Author:

Dave Luehr

Dave shares his experience from over 30 years as a collision repair industry leader in leadership, lean and Theory of Constraints. Once the owner of a body shop himself, Dave draws on the realities of a real world collision repair shop in his consulting, writing and keynote speeches.

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