What's in this article:
- Best Practices When Using Digital Workflow?
- How do Workflow Step Configurations Impact the LIM Numbers
- Labor Inventory Management Example Configurations
Dos –
- Make sure your technician is opening the work order on their tablet while they are working on the vehicle
- Monitor for any yellow or red status bars at the top of tech columns to take proactive action before the schedule and work expected to be completed for the day is negatively impacted.
- Yellow means the technician has been working on the work order for 50% or more of the time billed.
- Red means the tech has been working on the work order for 90% or more of the time you billed the customer.
- Use the open vehicle icon to make sure the technician is working on the vehicle you have prioritized for them
- Have technicians update their job completion status when they complete a job or at any point, they change vehicles, go to breaks/lunch, or at the end of the day.
Don’ts –
- Do not duplicate work by printing work orders to assign work
- Do not allow technicians to choose what they work on next
How do Workflow Step Configurations Impact the LIM Numbers
You can adjust which workflow step's hours are excluded from the total hours by going to Inspection Settings → Workflow→Workflow steps → Workflow steps
Configuration: Certain Steps are Excluded (Recommended):
The yet-to-be-completed hours (2) exclude certain workflow steps from being a part of the aggregated hours at the top of the techs column. You may opt for this option if you want to exclude all hours from jobs that are still pending and may not be ready for the tech to work on at the current time. An example workflow step that you should exclude is Waiting for Parts. Steps that should NOT be excluded in this case are Waiting for Inspect, Waiting for Work Finished.
Impact of this configuration
When workflow steps are excluded following this configuration, the yet-to-be-completed hours only include hours that are currently available for the tech to work on. Once parts arrive (and the vehicle moves out of this type of workflow step) this number will go up.
Configuration: No Steps Exclude Hours (Not Recommended):
The yet-to-be-completed hours (2) do not exclude any workflow steps from the calculation. You may opt for this option if you are looking to be more cautious in your vehicle assignments and want to take into consideration every job that may possibly be assigned to the tech when determining vehicle assignments. If you go with this option, you risk underloading your technicians when parts do not arrive in time or another reason that prevents the tech from completing the work that same day.
Impact of this configuration
Compared to the first configuration’s 5.5 hours assigned shown for Joe Tech, this configuration shows that 8.9 hours are yet to be completed. It is important to note that this includes work that may not be ready to work on during the current day.
How the Estimate and Approval Steps work:
In the standard workflow configuration, the Estimate and Approval steps have special preset functionality. You cannot edit how those hours are excluded. For any jobs that were already on the work order before the vehicle entered the step the hours will be included in the yet-to-be-completed total. Any hours added after the vehicle is already in the workflow step are not shown because they are not yet authorized.