Twelve bookings and a workshop that cannot fit them
The diary looked fine yesterday: twelve cars, a normal day. But three are major services, two are diagnostic jobs for intermittent faults, and one is an electric vehicle that only two of your technicians are trained to work on. One of those two is on a course. By eleven the workshop controller is ringing customers to say their car will not be ready today.
The next day is the opposite. Eight small jobs, finished by two, and technicians waiting for work.
The diary counts bookings, not hours or skills
Many dealership diaries allocate slots per day, or a rough number of hours, without knowing what each job needs.
- Booking time is estimated by the advisor, not from standard job times.
- Technician skills and qualifications are not considered at booking.
- Holidays, training and sickness are not reflected in capacity.
- Diagnostic and warranty jobs are unpredictable and not allowed for.
The workshop controller balances it all on a whiteboard, adjusting as the day goes, but by then the bookings are fixed.
What poor loading costs
Overbooked days mean cars not ready when promised, calls to customers and courtesy cars out longer. Underbooked days mean paid technician time with no work. Both affect how much your workshop earns from the same team.
Customer satisfaction suffers on overbooked days, and franchised dealers may be measured on it.
There is a people cost as well. Technicians who are handed a job they are not trained for, or who spend the afternoon waiting while a colleague is buried in diagnostic work, notice that the day was not planned. Good technicians are hard to recruit, and a workshop that feels chaotic is harder to keep them in.
And when the whiteboard is the plan, the plan lives in the controller's head. On the days they are off, the workshop runs on guesswork, and it shows.
How we build workshop loading
- Standard job times are loaded from manufacturer times where you have them, and your own for other work.
- Each technician has a profile: skills, qualifications such as EV work, and working hours, with holidays and training from your rota.
- When an advisor books a job, the system shows remaining capacity in hours for that skill on that day, not just a free slot.
- Diagnostic and warranty jobs get a buffer based on your history.
- The workshop controller sees tomorrow as a timeline by technician and bay, and can move jobs between people.
- During the day, technicians clock on and off jobs where your DMS supports it, and the timeline updates so overruns show early.
| Input | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Job length | Advisor's estimate | Standard or historical times |
| Technician skill | Controller's memory | Profile per technician |
| Capacity | Slots per day | Hours per skill per day |
| Overruns | Found late | Visible from clocking |
Where your DMS has good workshop loading already, we look at configuring that first and only build what it lacks.
A workshop day that matches the diary
Advisors book jobs into days that can actually take them. The controller starts each day with a plan by technician and adjusts it on screen. Customers are told realistic collection times at drop-off, and fewer are rung to be told their car is not ready.
Recognise your workshop?
- Some days are overloaded and others are quiet.
- Bookings do not consider technician skills.
- The workshop controller works from a whiteboard.
- Customers are rung to say their car will not be ready.
- EV or specialist work is booked when the trained technician is off.