Whenever they can, Charles Aubry and his wife watch the show My 600 Lb Life. While reflecting on the collision shop industry, Charles draws a parallel between the drama around the show’s subjects and shops that maintain excessive work-in-progress (WIP) loads. He calls it “My life [...]
A few Tips to Get Through the Crisis. 2021 will have seen a return to the repair levels of 2019. Of course, many entrepreneur collision shops suffered a lot from the travel pause that took place at the height of COVID-19. Now that we are [...]
In the last few articles, we have learned and unravelled six of our seven performance rules for optimizing capacity at collision shops. In summary, a good communication with the team, a sound methodology and a strong capacity planning and analysis tool are the three main [...]
You order a part from a recycler. It’s a nice quality A part. You even saw the picture. However, upon reception you realize that it’s more of a C or D quality part. Your supplier may have oversold the part’s quality, or the part may [...]
We often hear the usual: “I get all my vehicles to repair on Mondays and I deliver them (heaven willing) on Fridays. I've been doing this for 20 years, and it works.” Why change a winning formula? What is the point of receiving and delivering [...]
A repair appointment is given to a customer. This simple act happens a thousand times a day across Canada. What the customer doesn’t see is the thinking behind deciding on the repair start date. Ideally, it would be the date when the customer drops off [...]
It’s autumn 2021 and the labour shortage is in full swing. Even before this endemic labour shortage hit the market, the collision shop world was already suffering from a significant lack of succession. It’s hard to believe that we now live in a world where if [...]
Not overloading a workshop seems like a simple piece of advice. However, this is one of the collision shop managers’ most common weaknesses. This was true before COVID-19, and even more so as work returns. The workshops have been hungry, their pantry is empty, and [...]
Whether you are an occasional buyer or a veteran auctioneer, the success factors are the same. Non-professional buyers may be more emotional, especially when they can buy a luxury or exotic vehicle that will become their future baby. For an entrepreneur, however, it is important [...]
