Value-Added Time vs. Non-Value-Added Time

Wasted time comes in many forms. Whether it’s the extra steps a technician takes moving from point A to point B, or delays in communicating estimates to customers, non-value-added time silently erodes a dealership’s bottom line. In contrast, value-added time—time spent directly contributing to the service or product—is what drives profitability. Reducing non-value-added time and inefficiencies is crucial in today’s competitive market to ensure success.

To combat wasted time, adopting lean principles like 5S can help streamline operations. This approach includes organizing tools and supplies within immediate reach, minimizing the time a technician spends moving around the service bay. This physical standardization can significantly enhance productivity by ensuring every task is pre-positioned for maximum efficiency.

However, it’s not just physical movement that can waste time—communication delays can be just as detrimental.

Streamlined Communication: The Key to Speed

In automotive repair, communication is king. Let’s take a scenario where a technician completes an inspection and prepares a detailed estimate. The quality and speed with which the estimate is completed may be flawless, but if it sits on a manager’s desk for hours or days awaiting approval, the entire process grinds to a halt.

With today’s technology, communication can be instant. Emails, text messages, and even social media updates occur at lightning speed. In dealerships, this means approvals for repairs, customer updates, and internal communication should follow suit. Information should not only be immediate, but it must be clear, concise, and correct.

Instant communication is critical, but without the correct information, it’s ineffective. The focus should be on delivering the right information in real time, whether it’s a customer needing to approve an estimate or a service manager needing to schedule parts.

The Pitfalls of Unformatted Information

One major challenge in service and reconditioning is the reliance on a single, unformatted source for information. When all information is lumped together without clarity or structure, you’re forced to sift through it, digest it, and decide which parts are relevant. This process can take time—time that service departments simply don’t have. An additional result could be information overload which causes mental fatigue and people start ignoring intentionally.

In an environment where technicians, service managers, and salespeople must make quick, well-informed decisions, unformatted information is a productivity killer. Instead of immediately identifying actionable data, you’re spending precious time separating what’s important from what’s not. This delay creates bottlenecks, whether it’s in approving a repair estimate, ordering parts, or even deciding on a sales strategy. The key to eliminating this inefficiency is to deliver information in a structured, prioritized format—one that highlights the most crucial details immediately.

Reducing Variation through Standardization

As any Six Sigma expert will tell you, variation leads to waste. When tasks are inconsistent, productivity suffers. In a dealership, this might mean one technician takes longer to diagnose an issue than another, or one salesperson takes a different approach with every customer, creating unpredictable results.

Standardization helps mitigate variation and leads to higher efficiency. For example, in detailing a vehicle, every technician should start at the front bumper and follow a specific sequence. This eliminates guesswork and ensures consistency. It also makes training and accountability easier. If a step is skipped, a leader can pinpoint the exact moment and correct the process.

The same is true for customer interactions. A standardized sales process might include a set series of open-ended questions, offering an appraisal at the right moment, and a consistent discussion of financing options. Standardization provides a structure that eliminates wasted time and guesswork.

Lean Practices for a Modern Dealership

Adopting lean practices doesn’t stop at physical tasks—it extends into communication, decision-making, and customer service. Whether it’s through pre-positioning tools for technicians or creating a seamless communication pipeline for approvals and updates, standardization and lean practices are the keys to shrinking wasted time and maximizing profitability.

By streamlining both the physical aspects of your operation and the way information flows, your dealership can achieve faster turnaround times, better customer experiences, and ultimately, a stronger bottom line.