Standard operating procedures

[ncautoshop]

My wife and I have been working towards a standard operating procedure manual to make sure everyone is moving seamlessly and in the same direction. We're looking to the group for 2 things:

1: what are the topics/areas that you really couldn't imagine not covering?

2: were there any items that were added later or items that had a "wow" effect when implemented.

Just trying to make sure we get a grasp on the initial coverage and will add and modify as we go.

As always thanks for the help!

 

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[Joe Marconi]

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[alfredauto]

Good reminder, too often the techs get an incomplete work order or spend their time doing customer service work Instead of repair jobs. When it gets busy it's easy to lose focus and spin your wheels all day. I'm going to review my plan it's been too long.

[Jordan Spain-Honaker]

I'm going to back up what Mr. Marconi said. When I came on board at our family shop two years ago we had a few SOP's already in place, uniforms, breaks, etc. etc.

The biggest change we made was to clearly define roles and responsibilities in writing. Beyond that we created a work flow chart that clearly showed step by step our vehicle check in, inspection, sales, repairs and quality check.

 

Our shop crew complains that we repeat our SOP's too often, but when we do everything runs smoother and customers are happier. Funny right?

[flacvabeach]

We have a shop practices manual that covers safety and standard processes for doing the defined services that we perform. It is an evolving document, but every time we make a major change to it, we print it out with a receipt form they have to sign and turn in. Do they actually read it and learn from it? Follow-on observation and training are required, but they can't say they didn't know the rules. Vin Waterhouse is big on documenting shop procedures and he offers tools to help you get started. Google him.