FREE PDF Report - Automotive Industries Association of Canada

2010 CANADIAN AUTOMOTIVE SERVICE & REPAIR SHOP SURVEY
BENCHMARKING PERFORMANCE MARCH 2010
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of this report is to benchmark the performance of Canadian Automotive Service
and Repair shops and identify key management practices that impact overall performance
results. Survey respondents were divided into three categories – Top performers, Average
Performers and Bottom performers. Four dimensions – Operating, Throughput, Performance
and Productivity ‐ were analyzed and compared between the three categories.
The results indicate that there exists a marked difference among surveyed shop operators
regarding how they run their day‐to‐day business. On the one hand there is the school of
thought that “more cars mean more business”… and on the other hand there is the “balanced
throughput for the staff on hand” practitioners. The outcome produced by each of these two
schools of thought translates into a significantly higher sales and staff productivity for the
latter. In fact, the “balanced” approach has actually delivered the higher average transaction
value that was estimated by AIA’s Canadian Automotive Aftermarket Demand Study released in
the fall of 2009. This single “Touch Point” implies that the operating model of “balanced
throughput” is what the Canadian fleet is in need of, given a previously identified need for
improved vehicle maintenance.
For the top 25% of performers, higher levels of front counter staffing and daily repair order
control translated into $5,000,000 in additional sales for this group of shops, while servicing
only half the number of vehicles as the bottom 25%. Both groups had identical full time
Technician staffing.
Although the overall number of responses to this survey was much higher than what was used
in analyzing the results, many of the responses were incomplete and therefore excluded from
the sample. Given the small number of responses used (71) in the final analysis, there cannot
be national significance associated with the conclusions. While the responses were interesting
and worth noting, it must be clear that there that these are observations only and that no
statistical significance can be attributed to the document or results.
These observations may be used or not at the discretion of the reader.
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