Case Studies

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Case Study: Continental Toyota

From sticky notes and spreadsheets to automated shop management, RepairCenter technology helps Continental Toyota to grow the business and implement best practices.

Company Profile

Continental Toyota
Hodgkins, Illinois

Type:
Toyota Dealership Collision Repair
& Mechanical Facility

Facility Employees: 11

In Business Since: 1995

Annual Revenue:
$1.5 million

DRP Programs:
3 standard DRPs and 3 fleet programs

Number of Locations: 1

Production Space: 25,000 sq. ft.

Continental Toyota's RepairCenter Workspace:
Accounting Interface
Parts and Labor
Scrubbers
AR Payments Management
Parts Management
Labor Management
Production Management
Repair Scheduling
Task Management
Opportunity Management
Attachments
Job Costing
Analytics

Greatest thing about Mitchell RepairCenter

"The technological advances that RepairCenter affords will help us grow our business. We couldn't do this before without RepairCenter technology in place."

As one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the greater Chicagoland area, Continental Toyota serves a sizable and growing client base. Kevin Mehok, Director of Collision Repair, and his team oversee a 25,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility. Yet for all its high-tech repair equipment, Continental Toyota was, until recently, using very "low-tech" management processes that created challenges in improving shop operations.

"Mitchell RepairCenter has brought our shop into the 21st century. The technological advances that RepairCenter affords will help us grow our business."

"Before we installed Mitchell RepairCenter™ in our shop, we were literally placing sticky notes on files to keep track of our orders," says Kevin. "We were always very organized and professional, but the lack of technology was holding us back. When I first arrived here and saw that everything was still documented by hand, I felt like I had stepped back in time 20 years. There were handwritten notes on the fronts of files and handwritten notes for payroll and invoicing. We had a beautiful, modern repair facility, but our office and systems were antiquated. There was a lot of walking around, resulting in lost productivity."

That all changed once they made the move from pencil and paper to RepairCenter. Now Continental Toyota leverages RepairCenter to manage all aspects of its business. "With RepairCenter, we've become so much more productive. Its really helped us to improve our efficiency, and it helps to prevent mistakes and keeps things from falling through the cracks. RepairCenter helps us to maintain our delivery dates."

"There are many features within RepairCenter that have helped improve our shop efficiency," states Kevin. "I really like the overview screen that shows essential "heads up" information like repair totals, the insurance company, customer phone numbers, and links that allow you to easily access other critical data. In addition, I like that RepairCenter doesn't force automatic recalculations when you import an estimate. This eliminates the need to perform a lot of line item clean-up to total the estimate correctly."

Continental Toyota has also tapped into the powerful reporting and analytics capabilities in RepairCenter. They closely manage performance using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as closing ratios. "Looking at notes for capicity numbers helps with our projections, " says Kevin. "The reporting has been invaluable. I can now quickly review capacity and labor sales to set a realistic forecast. I've eliminated much of my former time-consuming spreadsheet work."

RepairCenter also helped the Continental team overcome another pain point—managing parts. "I don't like ordering parts over the phone, but with RepairCenter ordering parts is simple. I can easily order the right parts at the right time because all the information I need is at my fingertips, including the VIN number. RepairCenter saves us a lot of time. I walk less and get more done."

"When it comes to payroll, it's much easier for us now," states Kevin. "Before RepairCenter, we relied on manual processes and handwritten notes to keep track of employee hours. Our technicians are paid on commission, so the automatic time calculation for payroll is a wonderful feature. One of the key benefits of RepairCenter is the ability to drive processes. Our payroll processing routinely took four to five hours to complete and now it takes 90 minutes. That's a dramatic improvement."

RepairCenter has also provided Continental Toyota with the management tools it needs to drive efficiency and streamline processes. "If you follow the basic processes delivered through RepairCenter, you are actually implementing body shop best practices," says Kevin.

In addition, RepairCenter's modular design has enabled Continental Toyota to adopt the technology at a pace that is right for its individual shop dynamics. "We're very interested in technology, but we need to take it slow so that our employees are not overwhelmed," says Kevin. "In a period of a few short weeks, our technicians became acclimated to RepairCenter. Now, everyone really likes the system. The ability to pick and choose your functionality is great. You don't have to consume everything at once, and you don't have to pay for services you aren't going to use.We have plans to grow our volume of business, and now we have the right technology in place to help us achieve our goals."

"Mitchell's RepairCenter has brought our shop into the 21st century," states Kevin. "The technological advances that RepairCenter affords will help us grow our business. We couldn't do this before without the right technology in place."

10/22/10