Boards, bottlenecks, and where the Camry went.
Production boards, cycle time and workflow tracking for collision shops. Written for whoever runs the floor, not whoever sat through the demo.
Why customers call, and how to stop it
Most status calls are not complaints. They are silence, and silence is a thing you can fix on purpose.
/ 5 min read
Free auto repair shop software: what you actually get
Free shop software is real, and it is free for a reason. Here is where each kind stops, and which limit hits your shop first.
/ 6 min read
Mechanic shop software: the approval queue is the real bottleneck
The biggest queue in a mechanical shop is not parts. It is cars sitting on an unanswered text, and most boards cannot show it.
/ 6 min read
The three shop reports that are worth reading
Most shop dashboards produce numbers nobody acts on. Three of them actually change what you do on Monday.
/ 5 min read
Tire shop software: what a service board needs when the day is walk-ins
Most shop software is built for jobs measured in days. A tire shop measures in minutes, and it changes what the board has to do.
/ 6 min read
Job tracking software: the difference between a list and a board
A list tells you what exists. A board tells you where things are stuck. Only one of those runs a shop floor.
/ 5 min read
Invoicing in an auto repair shop: where the numbers actually come from
Most invoicing pain is not about invoicing. It is that nobody captured the information while the work was happening.
/ 6 min read
Shop floor management: the column with the longest dwell is your constraint
Every shop has a theory about where the week goes. One number settles it, and it is usually not the stage anyone blamed.
/ 6 min read
Estimating and tracking are two different jobs
Your estimating system prices the work and gets you paid. It cannot tell you where the car is, and it was never meant to.
/ 6 min read
Wrap and detail shops: booked out for weeks, still losing days
A calendar tells you Monday's job is Monday. It does not tell you the film for it has not arrived.
/ 6 min read
Collision repair workflow tracking for the week everything goes sideways
The two numbers that end the bottleneck argument.
/ 6 min read
Software that works alongside CCC, because you already pay for it
You already pay for estimates. Once is plenty.
/ 5 min read
What is a body shop production board? Your whiteboard is lying to you.
Cards, columns, and why the magnets quit on you.
/ 6 min read