Fixed Ops Journal - February 2018 - 14

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

EXPRESS
continued from Page 13

 Precisely track the dealership's inventory

of filters, wiper blades, lights and other regular wear items.
 Funnel a steady stream of vehicles into service bays for work that might otherwise have
gone to aftermarket shops.

Turning point
Chuck Gile, Motorcars Honda's dealer principal, describes customers buying cars and trucks
from his store but then drifting away to independent shops for oil changes, tire purchases
and other routine maintenance. He discovered
that his competitors were offering things that he
- and most other dealers - weren't.
"It came down to speed, transparency and
price," says Trevor Gile, Motorcars Honda's
general manager and Chuck Gile's son.
The Giles concluded their dealership
wouldn't survive without a high-volume,
high-profit service department that ran fast
and lean, generating revenue when car and
truck sales were slow.
Most of all, they decided, that meant providing fast service better than anyone else. "We
have to get that work back into the dealership," Chuck Gile told Fixed Ops Journal.

Memorable visit
A dozen years ago, the Giles and their management team visited Bobby Rahal Honda in
Mechanicsburg, Pa. The dealership had just
installed a pair of conveyor belts that moved
service vehicles to a series of stations where
techs performed specific tasks.
Intrigued by Rahal's assembly line for quick
service, the Giles began drawing up plans for a
similar operation in their other dealership, a
Toyota store across the street from Motorcars
Honda. But that dealership lacked the space
for a moving assembly line.
Motorcars Honda, which occupies Cleveland Heights' old city hall, was similarly landlocked. Six years passed before the dealership
bought a small, adjacent parcel of land from
the city, enabling it to expand its service department and plan for the assembly line.
A dispute with an architect that landed in
court caused further delays. But the Giles never lost sight of their vision for express service
and its key elements: speed, transparency and
price.
Buying and installing the equipment that
would deliver those attributes proved to be
relatively easy. But perfecting the step-by-step
process that allows the assembly line to func-

PAGE 14

FEBRUARY 2018

Yours for $700,000
Motorcars Honda aims to sell its
quick-service assembly line system to
other dealerships. The package
includes
 6 Mohawk lifts
 2 engine oil suction machines
 An express parts locker
 The assembly line floor system, with
safety sensors
 Detailed instructions on staffing and
operations
 On-site help to launch the system
Source: Motorcars Honda

tion seamlessly has been an expensive,
time-consuming challenge and remains a
work in progress.
"I'd be lying if I said there weren't tough
days," Trevor Gile says. "We drew chalk on the
ground and used Matchbox cars to figure out
what each workstation would be."
Last September, Motorcars Honda did a soft
launch of its reinvented service department.
There's been no advertising of the new
fast-service line, just word-of-mouth. Yet the
number of oil changes has nearly doubled
since September, Gile says.

Station to station
Quick-service customers at Motorcars Honda don't need appointments and don't have
to be Honda owners. They pull up to a large
automatic garage door that leads to a 100-foot
service drive with six stations (photo story,
Page 18).
A valet carrying a tablet greets customers.
The vehicle identification number discloses
the maintenance and recall history of each car
or truck, along with other information.
From padded seats behind a guardrail, customers can watch their vehicle being serviced
on big TV monitors. The valet or a service adviser drives the vehicle over a Hunter Quick
Tread machine to inspect the tires.
A few feet farther along, at a Hunter Hawkeye machine, two techs attach wheel sensors
that check alignment specs.
The work the techs carry out at each stop on
the moving assembly line is flexible, depending on traffic in the lane. At the first stop, a
Mohawk lift elevates the vehicle. A technician
checks the suspension and brakes, looks for
leaks, rust and road damage and inspects
common wear items.
The tech performs these checks with a cam-

era at the end of a wand that projects the inspection onto the monitor for the customer to
watch.
At the next station, the old engine oil is removed. A tech inserts a straw through the dipstick tube that goes to the bottom of the oil
pan. In about two and a half minutes, without
ever touching - and potentially stripping -
the drain plug, the used oil is sucked out the
top of the engine.
At station three, the car again is elevated,
this time for a tire rotation and - if needed -
balancing. Two techs working side by side can
rotate all four tires in about three minutes.
Another tech changes the oil filter at the
same time. Then the vehicle is lowered back
onto the moving assembly line.
Fresh oil is pumped into the engine from an
overhead hose at station four. Techs vacuum
the interior and check and top off fluids.
At station five, techs wipe down the interior
and ensure that the oil maintenance light is
reset and that there are no warning lights or
trouble codes.
Most vehicles don't stop at station six, which
is used for inspections in case there's an issue
with a car or truck on the line. At the end, customers receive a coupon for a car wash.
The goal is to get each vehicle through the
assembly line in 25 minutes or less - a
benchmark the dealership had no problem
meeting during a visit by Fixed Ops Journal.
The dealership ultimately aims to cut that
time to 18 to 22 minutes, Trevor Gile says.

Express parts locker
The express line eliminates the time-consuming walks that lube techs often must make
to the parts department. Halfway down the
line, a parts cabinet contains the maintenance
items that techs need to handle most jobs.
A tech enters information from the repair
order into a computer in front of the cabinet.
That process unlocks doors to compartments
with oil filters, air filters, wiper blades and
other common parts. Once they are removed,
those items are subtracted from the dealership inventory.
Entry-level techs do oil changes and routine
maintenance work on the assembly line, enabling senior technicians to concentrate on
high-value repair jobs. Trevor Gile compares
the division of labor to a hospital's.
"We want to have the junior technicians be
the nurses and check the vital signs and the
senior technicians be the doctors," he says. "It
changes the whole way service is done."
see EXPRESS, Page 16

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - February 2018