February 19, 2010
Using mounting and balancing to process more cars
Follow the Five S's and convert to one-piece flow
By: Mike Manges
Another benefit of one-piece flow is the ability to measure the process’ results.
“Once you have stabilized the process and made it repeatable, you can measure it.”
Keefe recommends measuring job time “from the moment the car pulls into the bay until the second it leaves the bay. Some people (measure) from the time the customer approves the work until the time you hand his keys back. That encompasses more processes.”
When mounting and balancing, “focus on the back shop rather than the front shop. There are a lot of things you can focus on back there that are low-hanging fruit.
“Just having your balancing accessories stored in a convenient location next to your balancing machine and making sure your machine is equipped with the accessories you need so you’re not running back and forth stealing and borrowing items will improve your productivity” Keefe notes.
“Five S and one-piece flow may come as a shock to some tire dealer’s operations and people,” says Keefe. Both processes require daily enforcement “and they sometimes require a culture change in an organization.
“Not every dealership is capable of making that kind of a shift. It’s a commitment — something you have to drive every day.
“But we’ve worked with some high-profile independent tire dealers who have employed these (techniques) and they’ve made some great strides” in boosting both their car count and, ultimately, their bottom line. ■
Don’t chase weights! ‘Do it right the first time,’ says Hunter
“Weight chasing is a very common problem when balancing wheels,” say Hunter Engineering Co. officials. “That is, applying additional weights after the first attempt at balancing the wheel. This can be caused by a number of things: incorrect weight placement, having to supply large amounts of correction weights, incorrect wheel dimension entry, etc.
“The single most important thing you can do” to streamline the mounting and balancing process “is doing it right the first time. We’ve known of shops that have 18% warranty on balancing alone!
Low-taper cones and collets have been shown to reduce comebacks by centering the wheel correctly the first time.”
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