Fixed Ops Journal - May 2016 - (Page 26)

FIXED OPS JOURNAL " "If I'm a service manager, the only way I would know that that hoist is on the safety locks would be to walk through the shop and check out every down lever on every hoist." DAN JOHNSON, Larry H. Miller Dealerships RAISING LIFT SAFETY ■ Fixed ops boss and supplier innovate to light the way DAVE VERSICAL dversical@crain.com HIGH ALERT O ne look at the accident list on OSHA's website will give you a strong sense that bad things can happen when mechanics make a living beneath two tons of automobile. Dan Johnson, 53, knows the risks, too. He has spent most of his 35-year career managing parts, service and collision operations. Since 2011, he has been the fixed operations director for Larry H. Miller Dealerships - the 10th-largest U.S.-based group, with 55 stores in 2015. His 49 service departments house some 1,300 lifts. During each ascent, untold times each day, a technician raises a car above its working height and then lowers the car until the locks on the lift are engaged. In the process, hydraulic pressure is relieved and the support is shifted to a mechanical, "safety" mode. Most of the time, all is well. But how can shop bosses quickly make sure everything is the way it should be? A few years ago, Johnson began to wonder just that. "If I'm a service manager, the only way I would know that that hoist is on the safety locks would be to walk through the shop and check out every down lever on every hoist," he recalled thinking. "There's got to be an easier way to know that." So he set out to find one. At the 2014 National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans, Johnson took his concerns to Rotary Lift, the supplier of most Larry H. Miller lifts. He asked whether there was any way to put a light at the top of a lift to indicate that it's in the locked position. That way, a service manager could simply look up and down a row for peace of mind, rather than check each lift individually. "I said to Rotary: 'We really need your help with this.'" Rotary engineers in Madison, Ind., went to work on the case. Before long, Rotary shipped a dozen kits to be retrofitted on Miller lifts. Rotary also applied for a patent. After a few months of testing, Johnson and PAGE 26 MAY 2016 Locked and lit: Two years ago at NADA, Dan Johnson shared his dream with Rotary Lift. This year, the green light was on display. his service managers gave the devices a thumbs-up. Now, Miller is gradually retrofitting its existing lifts. More than 100 have had the feature, called LockLight, added. And any new lifts Miller orders come with LockLight. It costs $266, either as a retrofit kit or as an option on new lifts. Rotary says the light is available on its twopost, four-post and light-duty in-ground models, which range in price from $4,000 to $10,000. The lesson for dealerships? If you have a good idea, talk to your partners about it, Johnson says. And the lesson for vendors? "They can learn from us - what our needs are, what our challenges are."■ Health and safety officials are paying more attention than ever to risks in service bays, says Bob O'Gorman, president of the Automotive Lift Institute. "This is in response to many factors," he wrote in an email. They include "an increase in employee personal-injury litigation, a flood of untested products flowing into the equipment marketplace, and the fact the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that thousands of workers are treated for injuries in shops each year." Here is a summary of American National Standards Institute guidelines, as provided by the Automotive Lift Institute, an association of lift manufacturers, in Cortland, N.Y. ● Certification and testing: Every installed vehicle lift must be third-party tested and certified. All vehicle lifts must be inspected at least annually by a qualified lift inspector. ● Training: Dealerships should be prepared to show documentation that all of their technicians have been trained on the proper use of lifts. ● Maintenance: Every lift must have a documented maintenance plan. Inspectors will look for the plan and evidence that it is being followed. ● Electrical compliance: All electrically powered equipment in the workplace is required to be third-party tested and listed to demonstrate compliance with national electrical safety requirements. It's not enough to have vehicle lifts that are CE (Europe) approved or carrying UL's Recognized Component label on the motor. ● Locks: Any lift equipped with mechanical load-holding devices ("locks") should have the hydraulic pressure relieved and be resting on those devices before a technician goes under the vehicle to work. Unlike in some European markets, vehicle lift safety standards in North America require a mechanical load-holding device as part of the lift. ■

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - May 2016

Fixed Ops Journal - May 2016
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Service Counter
Legal Lane
Profit Builder
‘Grease monkey’?
Hail
Photo story
Richard Truett
High light
Service satisfaction
Certification
Tsunami
Recalls
90-second oil change
Financing fixes
Supreme Court
Tech trends
Top 50
5 Minutes With
Shop Talk
Fixed in Time

Fixed Ops Journal - May 2016