Implementing Structural Pre-Scans
Whether you measure success by customer reviews, average RO (repair order) price, or the quality of your repair, success for your shop starts with the repair plan itself. A well written repair plan can prevent bottlenecks. Blueprinting creates the order of operations for the repair and is the baseline to ensure customers are updated, bills are paid, and manufacturer guidelines are met. Your shop’s profit will increase while simultaneously reducing your liabilities.
If you’re repairing cars, you should have scan tools for your repair planner or disassembly technician. Most shops already see the benefits of how a mechanical pre-scan can make money and aid in diagnosing issues a car may have from the accident, issues before the accident, and potential issues that need to be addressed resultant from the repair process.
The next phase in creating a sound repair plan should be to perform a “structural pre-scan” or “pre-measurement.” Using a three-dimensional measuring system, a technician can take precise measurements to verify the structural misalignment of the vehicle post-collision. The data from this measurement alerts the repair planner of the need for required safety inspections, diagnoses potentially hard-to-see damage, and gets the vehicle to the correct department for repairs (heavy, medium, light, etc.). You will find that mechanical pre-scans and structural pre-measurements are invaluable to your shop’s repair planning process and its profitability. With the different metals used in today’s vehicles, nearly all repairs in your facility should start with this process.
Note: A “structural pre-scan” is NOT the same operation as “setting up and measuring” in the case of a needed pull. You should document these two different uses of measurement equipment throughout the repair.
Preventing Bottlenecks with Structural Pre-Scans
A collision repair facility can experience various issues, and introducing heavy volume amplifies these issues. Regardless of the problem a shop faces, the culprit is usually a bottleneck that has formed somewhere in the shop. Ultimately, these issues can strain the entire shop, costing billable time and loss of profits.
More extreme variations of bottlenecks result in vehicles having unrepaired damage that makes it to reassembly before being discovered. Often resulting in unordered parts, poor part fitment, or missed safety inspections. Missing structural damage can have a more severe impact as well. Shops are left to potentially buy back a car or see it totaled mid repair causing friction between the customer, the insurance provider, and the shop. The worst-case scenario is a vehicle leaving your shop unsafe, with hidden damage and ultimately putting the customer at risk of more severe harm, with the repairer carrying those liabilities.
Implementing structural pre-scans into your repair planning will build the foundation for a quality repair. These measurements will help eliminate bottlenecks and decrease work-in-progress (WIP) expenses. Issues like WIP parts and mid-repair damage discovery can be resolved upfront by determining structural measurements and a more thorough scope of damages. With these measurements, we can see if a repair needs to make its way to the heavy hit bays for serious repairs if it can progress into the express lanes for minor body and paint. We can also use this information to address potential total loss vehicles earlier in the repair process. If the goal of a collision repair facility is to repair vehicles quickly and efficiently, using three-dimensional measuring equipment in the repair planning process is a must.
Increasing Profitability & Reducing Liabilities
A body shop is, above all else, a business. When making purchases inside a business setting, you must consider the return on investment (ROI). The ROI of acquiring three-dimensional measuring equipment should be examined by more than the billable hours. One of the most significant benefits is the mitigation of risks. However, we will start with a look at the profitability of measuring equipment and how incorporating structural pre-scans into your shop’s SOPs can bump your average RO price.
Billable hours are found in several places when using measuring equipment in the repair planning process. Using the equipment for a structural pre-scan is mentioned in the P-Pages as a “non-included operation.” Therefore, it is a billable operation whether damage is found or not. If damage is found, the measuring system has generated additional repair labor that could have gone undetected using a two-dimensional tram. Measuring creates more touch time in the repair process, making more money per job.
Another huge profit center for measuring systems is the mechanical measuring of suspension parts and required safety inspections like steering columns. Mechanical items like axle shafts and housings can be easily measured with 3-D measuring systems making hard-to-see damages to suspension items easier to diagnose early in the repair process. Depending on the OE, steering column measurements may be required without structural damage, but column measurement should always follow if structural damage is found. When performing steering column measurements, there is mechanical time on items like steering column overhaul and the added time to perform the measurement. If the column were to fail the inspection, you would have replaced a damaged, unsafe, part while also receiving a boost in your parts sales.
To put these required safety inspections to the test our team purchased a Chevy Silverado steering column from a salvage yard to perform measurements. The truck had taken a core support impact but had no airbag deployment or indication that the steering wheel was damaged. With the column disassembled and lying flat on a workbench, we used the measuring equipment to check our column against the measurements provided by General Motors. Our measurements found the column to be 20mm short of the required length, as indicated by GM in their procedural document. This test confirmed the need to follow repair guidelines, create well-researched repair plans, and execute required safety inspections. It also confirmed the profitability of doing them.
An aspect of ROI that is most beneficial is mitigating lost income or lost touch time. If structural pre-scans are implemented at the beginning of a repair, the likelihood of having a hard stop farther down the repair line is reduced to virtually zero. Reducing work needing to be redone will increase the shop’s bottom line while giving its customers and employees a better repair experience.
Final Notes
When running a business or repairing a vehicle, the more you know, the more confidently you can proceed. By combining a structural pre-scan with the OEM repair procedures, your team can take a holistic approach to repairs, as all the information about the vehicles will be available when the repair plan is written. You can also increase profitability when you repair cars with the correct and thorough repair processes.
Adding structural pre-scans to your shop’s standard operating procedure is the next step in ensuring vehicles that come through your doors are repaired, properly, safely, and profitably.
Quality control and documentation are the keys to running your shop efficiently, from intake to final wash. You need to document everything. No matter your preferred management system, documenting everything is the best way to ensure your shop is protected and gets fairly compensated.
Measuring equipment should not be reserved for heavy hits needing to go on a frame bench; using it early and often in the repair process is necessary.
