Productivity Potential

Tony Villareale knew that his company was struggling with tracking its service technicians’ productivity. And the president of Hampton Watercraft & Marine, Hampton Bays, N.Y., was determined to do something about it. But not on his own.

Villareale employed the services of Gordon Oberg from Business Coaches LLC, to analyze and critique the service department and to provide ideas on how the operation could be improved.

“I noticed that we were struggling on tracking the productivity and recording it,” Villareale explains. “I felt it was necessary to hire the consultant to make sure that our productivity was accurate and that my service department was working to its full potential to maximize profit.”

The consultant helped Hampton’s service manager create a system that improved on time management for service jobs. Most significant among the changes was the creation of a flat-rate system. Hampton Watercraft & Marine has always had packaged menu items available to consumers, and the consultant enabled the service department to allot time allocations to each job. And then each technician’s time spent on a specific job was compared to the time established in this new system.

“That helped us to record and post all of the time used in the completion of a repair,” Villareale explains. “We were then able to get an accurate number for our efficiency based on our billable hours. Although there was some pushback from the technicians at first, it proved successful.”

The process included using the service writer to keep track and compare the times. And the entire system has allowed Tony and his service department to see clearly where they were operating inefficiently and then correct it.

In the end, success also meant an increase in overall technician efficiency. And Villareale already has thoughts of bringing the consultant back to re-evaluate areas for further improvement.