NIGHT STAFFS IN GARAGES.
Page 13
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Are they Necessary ? The Paramount Importance of Keeping Business Vehicles on Productive Work may Compel Garages to Turn Night into Day.
By " Vim."
WITH the exception of a handy man or two kept by some garages until midnight, or through the night, to attend to urgent repairs, it is very rare indeed to find a regular night shift employed in one of those places. Watchmen and cleaners, who , sometimes combine their callings, are quite common ; but it is an almost unheard-of thing for a second shift of mechanics to come on when the day shift leaves, in order to continue the repairing work in progress, until relieved by the day shift in the morning. The two or three shift system pays in a factory, beettilse it reduces overhead charges by spreading rent, interest on machinery capital, and other standing expenses, over a maximum of production ; but in the ordinary way it would not prove economical to adapt it to a garage, owing to the highly-individualistic nature of motorcar repairing, and the great difficulty of continuing the work from shift to shift without mistakes being made. Moreover, those drawbacks apart-, the economical effect of the system when applied to garages must be slight, seeing that most of the operations are manual, and the c,a,pital represented by plant is by no means heavy, as compared
with a factory. ..
But the advent of the motor vehicle used for commercial purposes is altering the Complexion of the case. The private motorist may desire to have his repairs executed as quickly as possible, but the money that he has invested in his car does not rank with him as a productive investment, and since he expects no dividend from it, his chief wish is to get his work done well and at a low cost. To the business man, however' his vans, lorries, or motor coaches are a different proposition. Unless they earn enough to make their retention worth while, he cannot afford to run them. Their earnings may take the shape of convenience, cheapened goods transport, increased opportunities for trade, or plain cash ; but each and every one of these items has a monetary value to him, and if the cost of running his vehicles exceed the return from them, he knows that it is time to make a change.
Amongst the items on the debit side of his transport account will be one for interest on capital. The more work done by his vehicles in a year, the less will that charge count in relation to it, and the same may be said of insurance, rent, etc. We will put it that his total .expenses in this direction, per vehicle, come to £140 a year. If, then, he can arrange matters so that the output of each vehicle is increased by 25. per cent, without impairing its efficiency beyond its normal mileage depreciation, he will have saved £35 in 12 months. I must confess that SO large an increase as that stated would be hard to obtain from a new vehicle, in the pink of condition, otherwise than by reorganizing a defective delivery scheme, but I believe that in the case of commercial cars that have had a certain amount of wear, and require a good deal of repairing to keep them going satisfactorily, something approaching that extra output is obtainable by carrying out the repairs as far as practicable at night.
Many owners of large fleets employ night staffs of inspectors and mechanics, so that necessary maintenance work may be done whilst their cabs, buses, l ' or ries coaches, or whatever they may be, are compelled to be idle. That it pays them to do this, goes without saying. Although large fleets are not of much interest to the usual type of garage, because, as I have on several occasions tried to show, their owners are able to economize by having their own maintenance organizations, there is no reason why garages should not provide corresponding facilities for small fleets In fact, it is my impression that motor traders will have to institute night staffs of mechanics for dealing with repairs to commercial •vehicles, if they want to attract this trade to their premises. If owners of small fleets knew. that repairs would be done over-night, and that they would not be deprived of the use of their vehicles, it is certain that they would be disposed to take advantage of this service-, and to have little jobs carried out as the need for them arose. Because they have come now to depend so utterly on their motor transport, fear of the consequent inconvenience drives them into neglecting to have faults remedied, although their cormnorssense tells them that neglect is imprudent. Therefore, garages lose this remunerative and steady work, even if they gain rush breakdown jobs, which. disorganize their touring car trade and give scant satisfaction to repairers or owners. •
For thesake of indueing trade, risks must be undertaken. Garage proprietors cannot expect a night shift to pay right from the start of it. But I am sure that, given a sufficiency of commercial vehicle owners in the district; a garage that set itself out to execute, repairs to industrial ears over-night would not have to wait long for custom. . Also, I am just as sure that very few owners would mind paying extra for work done after business hours, for the gain would more than counter-balance the additional cost. In the absence:, at first, of vans and lorries for the night mechanics to exercise their skill upon, their time could be occupied in attending to the private cars in the place, and in this way the loss in wages would be negligible. In. the event of a job not being completed during the night, it might be objected that confusion would ensue in passing it over to the day-shift to complete. It is clear that there would be some danger of this ; but not so much as to be unavoidable. A short chat between the night foreman and day foreman should , be enough to acquaint the latter with the position of affairs, and to enable him. to instruct his mechanics how to carry on the work in the proper manner. For general chassis overhauls, which would extend over a number of alternating shifts, the American plan of conducting the operations strictly in accordance with a chart, possesses distinct possibilities. To enlighten readers who are not familiar with this method of repairing, it may be well to explain that, under it, a chassis is not stripped just as fancy dictates, but each step is pre-determined and fir-st set down on paper in definite sequence. A printed card, bearing a list of the operations in their right-order is issued for each repair, and as the mechanics complete the items they are ticked off. When the next shift takes over, a glance at the card at once indicates what has been done, and what is the succeeding step. • For the repairing of quantities of chassis of precisely similar -patterns, notably Fords, it is quite possible to prepare process charts that will give the correct sequence of operations for executing any repair whatever ; but owing to the many and totally different tYpes of vehicles that frequent British garages, the principle of the chart offers most scope for application where complete overhauls are concerned. Here, . minute details may be omitted without detracting from the value of the idea, and one carefully-compiled 'table made suitable for a wide range of makes. At all events, it deserves consideration from garage proprietors who think of instituting a night staff to deal with commercial vehicle maintenance.