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Competitive edge for clever fitters
Page 32
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Ford 's Insight scheme improves the quall-y of repair worK and provides a good incentive for high-grade mechanics to prove -neir won, reports Les Oldridge
WHEN an operator is buying a truck or coach, one of the factors which will influence his choice of make is the after-sales service which the agents for the various makes can offer.
After-sales service depends on the skill and expertise of the workshop fitter; the ability of the workshop fitter depends largely on the training he receives and the technical information made available to him.
Most manufacturers offer works courses to train fitters. The Ford Motor Company offers such courses but also runs a Registered Technician programme which is open to all technicians employed in Ford dealerships throughout the country.
The scheme operates in this way. Each month, excluding July and December, a 20-page magazine Insight (Fig 1) containing articles on current service problems and a description of a repair to a Ford vehicle is sent to each technician participating in the scheme. Each issue contains a set of questions on that month's articles for the technician to answer.
Questions are multiple choice; four answers are given and the technician must choose the correct one.
A novel answer card is provided (Fig 2): the appropriate panel is rubbed with a hard rubber. If a tick appears, the correct answer has been selected and the technician gives himself five marks. If a cross appears the answer is incorrect and the technician is advised to study the relevant article again. A correct answer at the second attempt scores two marks. Third and fourth attempts do not score.
The scheme depends a great deal on the active participation of the programme supervisor, normally the technician's foreman or service manager, who collects the completed answer cards and sends them to the Registered Technician hq.
The results of the Insight course are measured and the best technicians in each of the six Ford service regions take part in a written examination to find the district winners. (Incidentally there is a comparable scheme for car technicians). One finalist is chosen for each district's car and truck section.
These 12 technicians, six truck and six car men, compete in the final examination at the company's Service Training College at Daventry, Northamptonshire, where they go through a gruelling practical examination to find the best technician of the year. Valuable prizes are awarded to the winners in both the truck and car section and each finalist also receives a prize.
Competitors and a guest are entertained in a right royal manner. For example, this year they attended an award banquet in the Members' Dining Room at the House of Commons and then made a visit to a Thames luxury river cruiser for dancing and a cabaret.
The compiling of articles for Insight is done in a most interesting way. A firm with Ford's resources could get the material from its Service Training College or from one of its workshops. But the authors thought it would be better for the repair being described to be tackled by a technician in a dealer's workshop so that there was nothing artificial in the presentation. The snags which arise and the way they are overcome can then be described and the reader is presented with a. very practical account of how the job was done.
Once a month the Insight team visits a dealer's workshop and watches a repair being carried out. Photographs are taken at various stages -and with the co-operation of the fitter doing the job, the script for the article is written.
A list of repairs to be featured in articles in the magazine is prepared. Perhaps there is a modification to a vehicle which is currently being made or one service job which is causing problems about which publicity would be welcome. If possible, one of the repairs on the list is chosen for demonstration in the dealer's workshop but sometimes this cannot be arranged because none of the listed jobs are being carried out at that particular time. If this is the case, some other job which is being undertaken on a customer's vehicle is featured.
Insight is attractively produced in colour, not by the Ford Motor Company but by a contractor, Euroscript Ltd, of Ingatestone, Essex.
Foremen and other supervisory grades are normally excluded from the competition but young men who are sufficiently knowledgeable to reach the finals of the competition are, quite obviously, potential junior management material and, not surprisingly, it often happens that such men are promoted in the year in which they qualify for the "finals"' and in these case special exemption is made fc them.
The dealer is charged E1 per technician taking part in th scheme, but I understand th this cost is considered "gran worthy" by the Road Transpo Industry Training Board. Th scheme operates only for For dealers — operators with the own workshops and a Ford flei cannot take part in the scheme This scheme seems to me • provide technical information workshop personnel in a ye pleasant way. Workshc manuals, necessary and excE lent though they may be, are n exciting reading. Insight on th other hand is written in an i teresting and informal way an of course, there is the cor petitive element in the schen with the attraction of goc prizes for successful compe tors.