Greenwood Village, Colo. — “Work smarter—not harder” was the message conveyed to owners, service advisers, and technicians attending the Keep Educating Yourself and Staff (KEYS) 2009: Business Process Re-Engineering event on Oct. 3 at Cherry Creek High School.
The annual all-day professional development event, presented by the Automotive Service Association of Colorado (ASA-CO), focused on teaching attendees to improve shop efficiency using Lean Six Sigma, a business management strategy.
Approximately 45 ASA-CO members from across Colorado convened over coffee and doughnuts with the common goal of learning to re-engineer their business processes to increase productivity.
Colby Foster, a certified Lean Six Sigma black belt with more than 10 years of experience in the business process re-engineering field, was the lead facilitator of the event.
Foster said Lean Six Sigma was a combination of the lean strategy developed by Ford Motor Co. and the Six Sigma strategy developed by Motorola.
Lean practices concentrate on eliminating wasteful steps in processes such as overproduction and dealing with defects, she said, while Six Sigma is more math-based and centers on improving the quality of processes.
Combined, Lean Six Sigma focuses on eliminating unnecessary steps in business methodologies, as well as balancing and improving practices to improve service quality, Foster said.
“A typical process is only 5-10 percent efficient,” she said, adding that “there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
To help ASA-CO members understand the Lean Six Sigma model, Foster opened a discussion of daily shop procedures such as taking a customer’s information over the phone or washing a customer’s car.
She invited attendees to analyze these processes and ascertain which steps add value for the customer or business, or which steps don’t add value because they didn’t enhance the customer’s experience or benefit the business.
Following the discussion, Foster invited attendees to participate in an activity to calculate process efficiency and help them recognize changes they could make in their individual business routines.
“It’s important to know where your business metrics are coming from,” she said. ”Know the steps so you can reduce them.”
Although Lean Six Sigma terminology may be unfamiliar to some, Foster mentioned that many shops are already using the business improvement method in some capacity in their operations.
Rebecca Kirchdorfer, co-owner of Downing Street Garage, agreed that many shops already use Lean Six Sigma principles and probably don’t even realize it. She said she has attended many ASA-CO events and was optimistic about learning more about Lean Six Sigma.
“You’re always trying to do more with less,” Kirchdorfer said.
KEYS 2009 attendees also had the opportunity to participate in breakout sessions to look at processes in their shops and work on solutions for improving efficiency.
Following the event, attendees were provided with materials detailing the solutions discussed during the event.
Sponsors of KEYS 2009 included Pinnacol Assurance and Sisk & Co.
