As vehicles age and workshop demand increases, staying efficient is key. Discover how Autodata helps streamline workflows with precise labour times, standardised diagrams, and clear component naming.
As car parcs around the world start to age, workshops are becoming busier. Drivers are looking to hold on to their vehicles for longer, while others prefer the used-car market, rather than buying newer models.
Ensuring that a garage’s workflow remains as efficient as possible will allow businesses to operate a peak performance.
One area that can take time is the effort of estimating repair times and costs. With Autodata, garages can utilise the company’s vast experience to find repair estimates already logged in the system for a range of service, maintenance and repair jobs.
Technicians, or reception staff, can input their businesses’ hourly labour rate and select the level of VAT. This is saved in the system on the user profile, meaning it only needs to be updated should rates change.
Then, when a vehicle is booked in for work, all that is needed is the vehicle registration and the type of work required, be it a service or repair. Our system uses information gained from manufacturers and users to provide estimated repair times, and can calculate the labour costs based on the information provided.
Once parts are sourced, these costs can be added to the worksheet. This is then printed out to provide the customer with an invoice.
By utilising this area of Autodata, workshops can ensure they are using their time more efficiently. While the labour times are estimates, the data utilisation makes them more likely to be accurate. This means jobs can be booked in to follow one another, keeping the flow of vehicles through a workshop constant.
There is nothing worse than a job taking longer than it should, due to misreading data, or being unable to follow the information required in charts and technical drawings.
It can be easy to take a wrong path or focus on the incorrect area if a technical drawing is too complex. The time wasted is compounded by the need to go back along the route and find where the diversion was made, to then find the correct course.
With the complexity of modern cars, the information provided can be daunting. So having a simplified system helps to eliminate potential problems. Therefore, we provide high-resolution detailed diagrams, and standardised descriptions, rather than relying purely on manufacturer data. This means the diagnosis of an issue can be performed quickly.
Many carmakers will have their own way to describe components, systems, and processes. This use of ‘jargon’ may not match up to other brands. Therefore, technicians using data from many different marques could become confused. One component may have many different names, and taking time to understand what is meant, takes time from the job itself.
Instead, our detailed vehicle mapping uses its own language, so workshops can see the same components labelled in the same way, no matter what the brand. This also helps to improve first-time fix potential, by focusing on the area they understand, and not get confused by what the manufacturer calls it.
All of this helps workshops to manage their time more effectively, and improves both efficiency and profitability.
