Make every drop of oil account
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If top-up oil is entered on job sheets it can be charged to the customer. Colin Sowman looks at Alentic Orion's method
I One way to boost a workshop's profitability may be to ensure that the customer is charged for all the materials used on his vehicle. That is obvious with spare parts, but how can workshops account for every drop of oil used? With a complete oil change the customers will be charged. But oil used for topping up gearboxs, axles and engines is often left off the job sheet.
To stop this loss of oil — and revenue — Alentec Orion produces a range of oil monitoring equipment. Workshop went along to meet Graham Taylor, service manager at City Trucks in Milton Keynes, to find out how he found the system installed there. City Trucks, a Scania dealer, employs 14 fitters and has installed the top of the range Oricon system capable of dispensing eight grades of oil through 36 hoses.
A fitter drawing oil from the system needs to enter his personal identity number (PIN) on a keypad located near the dispensing reels. Depending on which grade of oil is required, the reel number is entered on the keypad, followed by the job number. The selected reel is then opened by the Oricon and the fitter draws the amount of oil required. After a delivery has been completed the main control box produces a printed copy showing time, date, reel number, grade and quantity
of oil drawn.
The job number and operator's clock number (not PIN number) are also printed out and the quantity used is automatically deducted from the stock figure. When the stock of any of the oils drops to a predetermined level, a re-order warning is included on the print outs.
In City Trucks' large work shop, oil use is obviously high; it averages ahout 75,000 litres (16,500 gallons) a year. It is almost a year since the Oricon system was installed and Taylor admits that it has taken this long to really get to know it. Like many similar set ups, the one at City Trucks was installed as part of a long-term contract with an oil company.
The particular system at City Trucks consists of an Oricon control unit, seven reel units and four keypads, and would have cost about £7,000 plus cost of installation and value-added tax, However, Alentec Orion offers packages starting from £1,642 (plus installation and VAT) for a four-reel system dispensing a single grade of oil.
From the fitter's point of view, provided that there are enough keypads there is very little problem. The only needs over and above the old work practice is for them to remember their PIN number and enter that and the job number onto the keypad. It is the management that really gets the benefit of the system. Every drop of oil drawn is automatically assigned to one authorised operator and, if the job number is incorrect (you can enter 0000), then that person can be asked to which job it should be booked.
Taylor says: "The trouble is that you don't know how much oil you are losing until you can account for it." In City Trucks' case that loss amounted to between 200 and 400 litres (44 and 88 gallons) of oil per month — losing up to £3,600 a year — which is now charged to the relevant customers.
The stock control feature has also proved useful. Previously, the tanks were dipped to find out how much oil was left in them.
This led to a situation where a delivery driver tried to pump 6,000 litres (1,320 gallons) of oil into a 5,000-litre (1,100-gallon) space in a tank. 'The result," says Taylor, "was expensive and messy." After a bit of fine tuning of the Oricon (through its management function), Taylor knows that then the re-order warning comes up the tank will take 5,000 litres without overflowing.
Customers answered
City Trucks reconciles print outs for oil dispensed against job cards daily so that any problems on the previous day's entries will be shown up. Stapling the print out to the job card has proved useful when customers have queried the amount of oil put into their vehicle (using the dipstick on sloping ground and the like). It convinces them that the correct quantity has been added. In the time that the system has been installed the only changes carried out through the management programming facility, have been the PIN numbers and reorder warning levels.
When siting the equipment, make sure that the reels and keypads are close together, says Taylor, including those in the pit. You cannot have fitters rushing to get down the pit before the timer cuts the oil flow off," he says. Above ground the keypads are mounted in the recess of the vertical RSJ roof supports where they are protected from impact by vehicles.
While the Milton Keynes operation is a large one, City Trucks has a smaller workshop at Thame where the Oricon controls only four reels. Taylor believes that workshops with as few as six fitters could justify installing oilmonitoring equipment. Alentec Orion has installed systems tailored to an oil company's specification in a workshop with just two reels. Small fleet operators with their own workshops can use vehicles' registration plate numbers as job numbers in order to keep a check on how much oil each is using.
Oil companies obviously see advantages in monitoring systems as it is they who are financing most installations — even in small workshops. Taylor is is enthusiastic about the equipment and wants to add power-steering fluid to the system. But even he admits that the secret of the system's viability is getting it at the right price. However, having got a system installed he would not like to go back to the old ways.
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