When it comes to leveraging analytics, the RV industry is still about a decade behind the auto industry. However, more and more dealers are seeing the value of analytics for improving profitability and efficiency, projecting more accurate inventory numbers, and planning for the future. Dealership management systems with integrated analytics capabilities are also making it easier to collect and interpret robust data across all areas of the business - including customer histories, service efficiency, profitability, technician productivity, overall dealership productivity, and more.
“It’s important to resist the temptation to ‘work the numbers’ to make them look more favorable. Honest and transparent reporting is necessary to see where the true bottlenecks are in an organization so you can make meaningful investments in improvement.”
ALLISON MILLER Sales Engineer at IDS
RECT IN THE MIND
Since consumer demand is high, reducing Repair Event Cycle Time (RECT) remains a top priority for dealers. In 2022, volunteers from the RVDA Board of Delegates formed a task force to work with their DMS software systems to help improve RECT reporting within those software systems. If you’re not monitoring what’s going on, either within the internal metrics at your dealership or looking at the RECT reports, then you can’t manage it. It’s important to pay attention to every metric that you can at your dealership. Don’t just see how long it takes overall to complete the Work Order. Look for what may be causing any bottlenecks in your repair process.
Here are two of the most common RECT bottlenecks:
Out-of-Stock Parts
Out-of-stock parts increase RECT because of the wait time required for the part to get to the dealership once it’s been ordered. The lead-time to receive the part is increasing due to ongoing supply chain issues. Another issue with parts ordering is that because there are so many RV models, makes, and floorplans, the manufacturer might not even be making parts for a unit that’s more than a few years old. This means dealers are forced to look elsewhere for a part, increasing the amount of time spent servicing the unit.
Warranty Coverage
With warranty coverage, it’s a matter of getting the authorization from the OEM and completing the paperwork to ensure that the authorizations are good for the dealer to get paid for it. However, most of the time, dealers are waiting on manufacturers to authorize them before they can even proceed with ordering the required part. While out-of-stock parts cause some delays, work orders with both Warranty Coverage and Out-Of-Stock Parts have the longest cycle times. Typically, two to three times longer than when just one bottleneck is included.
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