By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine
Having visited literally thousands of car washes I’ve come to realize that car wash operators are some of the most creative people when it comes to cutting the cost of doing business. I’ve seen some amazing ideas, often simple changes that could benefit nearly any car wash. Over the coming months I’ll try to share many of the real world marketing ideas, maintenance tips, and management practices that I’ve seen or used myself to successfully improve the bottom line.
There are many costs that have escalated for car washers recently, but none stand out more prominently than the rising cost of labor. It is an issue that has inspired tremendous innovation in equipment and altered the way many operators approach car washing. Every situation is unique and cutting labor expense without hurting customer service, lowering wash quality, or decreasing safety can be tricky. Below I will outline five steps I have seen used successfully to lower labor expense. There is no such thing as a risk free quick-fix, but I hope you find some ideas you can incorporate into your own wash.
Step 1: Start your work week on Thursday
The custom of starting the work week on Monday does not work well at a car wash. For almost every Full Serve location, Saturday is by far the busiest day. The problem is that unexpected surges and no-shows on Saturday can leave operators rushing to add staff. Finding people quickly often forces managers to ask employees who have already finished their work week to come back in. This results in overtime pay that quickly destroys all of your efforts to reduce labor expense.
One of the most effective methods to eliminate this dilemma is to start the work week on Thursday. Shifting your work week to start when you are busiest provides added flexibility. Now when you need to quickly bring extra people in on Saturday, you can draw from all staff, all at regular pay. The problem of finding more manpower still exists. What is important is that it has been delayed. Hopefully when your shortage occurs on Tuesday or Wednesday, you will have had time to hire more labor or make other arrangements without resorting to overtime pay.
Step 2: Recruit talent on an ongoing basis
Good help is hard to find – so as car wash operators we sometimes have to search harder. Many operators try to keep a constant list of potential employees to call as positions open. Have you ever received great service from an employee at a restaurant or store and thought “I wished they worked for me?” Although not for everyone, I have seen some operators pre-print cards with something to the effect of “You’ve been spotted offering great customer service” with a telephone number to call if they are interested in employment. It can be a very effective recruitment tool. It can of course backfire, especially in smaller markets. You never want to discover that some of your best customers are the managers of the people you recruited.
Step 3: Stagger your schedule
Staggering staff is simple in concept. Shifts of employees start every hour staggered for the first several hours growing as volume increases. As volume decreases, early shifts go home, reducing your labor expense smoothly as volume drops. Although simple in concept, the goal of having no idle employees is more complicated to achieve in practice. The real world seems to disrupt things with weather changes, illness, and many other factors that can be difficult to predict. The guiding principle is to meticulously plan and try for small continuous improvement.
Ironically the method for refining your staff plan is similar in theory to how weather predictions are made. Look at historical information, adjust for present conditions, and make your best guess. If you’re not already doing it, and your computer system doesn’t do it for you, you should be tracking how many cars you wash at what point of each day. Once you have your historical values plotted, adjust for weather, and develop a staffing plan that overlaps your labor during anticipated peaks. Although more predictable, if we look to the fast food model, staffing is often done in fifteen minute increments with three daily peaks. I mention this to help keep in focus that shaving 15 minutes of labor from just one employee per day at $8 per hour can save up to $730 per year. Multiply that number by 10 and the payoff for the somewhat tedious task of planning and staggering your schedule can really start to pay off.
Step 4: Reduce your prep and finishing work
When approaching this most fundamental step of reducing labor expense the best advice is to start small. Pick the slowest time on your slowest day. Begin by planning how you could produce a perfectly clean, shiny, dry car at that moment with no prep work. Depending on your equipment, the elimination of prep during the slowest times is often easily attained. If none of the ideas I outline below are enough to get you to that level, you may want to consider contacting your equipment and detergent suppliers. The benefits of having even 1 hour where you can run without prep provides invaluable flexibility in staggering staff schedules and reducing labor expense.
FIRST: Match your conveyor speed to carwash volume. Slowing down conveyor speed during slow volume hours will boost the dwell time detergents have to loosen dirt from the vehicle. Additionally it maximizes the friction contact time of mitters and side brushes for better cleaning. Drip space before drying also increases, resulting in cleaner, shinier, drier cars with less prep and finishing. Changing your conveyor speed several times a day is not uncommon at a busy location and setting the proper speed continuously is imperative in a slow to medium volume location.
SECOND: Check or adjust detergent application. Even the best equipment cannot clean a car without proper detergent application. It is hopeless to think about eliminating prep labor at any conveyor speed without a complete and even coating of detergent on all vehicle surfaces. Begin with the nozzles. The accuracy of a nozzle deteriorates with every car that is washed. Worn spray tips are difficult to visually diagnose but often the culprit for inconsistent application. Every car wash should have an established replacement interval for nozzles based on the nozzle material, detergent used, and the number of cars processed. Once you are confident of the integrity of your nozzles check how they are pointing. Many application arches have a single row of nozzles on one manifold perpendicular to the vehicle surface. This configuration presents difficulty getting full coverage of front and rear surfaces. One possibility to address this situation is angling some nozzles towards the front and rear of vehicles for increased coverage. Additional options exist to add a tee and convert one nozzle port into two nozzles aimed at the front and back of the vehicle. Be aware that increasing the number of nozzles may require reducing nozzle size depending on pump capacity. No matter what you do to get complete detergent application, it is fundamental to eliminating prep labor expense.
THIRD: Check detergent type and dilution. Having a good detergent supplier is like having an extra assistant manager. One that comes frequently and understands your business is vital to producing a clean car with less prep. Above I mentioned matching conveyor speed to car wash volume. It goes without saying that changing conveyor speed effects the required detergent concentration to achieve the same cleaning performance. Check with your detergent manufacturer to pre-determine correct concentrations as you change variables in your car wash. Producing a clean dry shiny car demands a complete understanding of the marriage between wash equipment, materials, and detergents. Mastering this relationship is critical to getting cleaner cars without relying on manual labor.
Step 5: Change finish area stacking
The most obvious step to reducing your labor expense is by getting greater productivity from each employee. Not to discount the value of training and motivational exercises, production can also be enhanced by changing loading and exit end traffic flow. One of the greatest opportunities exists by stacking cars efficiently in the Full Service finishing area. Based on what your property allows, you should layout a grid to the maximum width and necessary depth to accommodate the highest anticipated volume. Every car should come off the conveyor into an assigned spot, not to be moved until the owner drives away the finished product. An organized grid system maintains all cars headed in the same direction. On a moderate day one team can work the entire grid. Cars are finished in order before the team returns to the first spot. As volume increases more finishing teams can be added with one team per row. As long is there is a car in the grid the drive off attendant must complete the grid. For a grid to work effectively it must always be adhered to regardless of volume or employee count. Good habits breed efficiency which is what reducing labor expense is all about.
Summary
Reducing your labor expense demands a careful plan and a lot of work. There is no one quick fix and success often comes in small increments. Eliminating labor is about increasing efficiency. In streamlining your wash process you will tackle issues related to equipment, detergent, and management. My biggest suggestion is to start with your slowest day, set a clear goal for staff reduction, and to try new ideas until you attain your goal. Once you have something working well, apply it to other days and take another step forward towards reducing your labor expense.
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