HANDLING REPAIRS IN GARAGES.
Page 10
Page 11
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Is the Garage Owner Studying the Right Way to Attract Repairs ? Why a Separate Department for the Repair of Commercial Vehicles is Necessary.
By "Vim."
IT IS ONE of my convictions that the immense business to be done in the near future, in connection with the maintenance of commercial vehicles, is not yet properly grasped by one garage proprietor in a hundred.. Motor transport is so far ahead of horse transport in all-round convenience that the . latter may be said to be in a dying condition. It is slow in dying, but its final decease is, in my opinion, as inevitable as was the disappearance in this country of the pack-horse when roads first began to be abundant. I know there are still people who point to certain oases where equine traction is used and. declare that, because of its cost,-the motor will never supplant it, but for every one such case I can demonstrate another where it was said, a few years back, that horses were the only economical means of carry. ing goods, and . yet the conquering self-propelled vehicle has now the firmest of footings.
Goods transport by motor van and lorry is a big thing at the 'moment, and isavorth catering for. Be-. fore the next 10 years have gone, however, its magnitude is likely to be so vast as to put the present state of affairs completely in the shade. It is a fact that the growth of motor transport must, to swill) extent, depend on the first cost of vehicles, and on cost of fuel and tyres ; But those items count for very little, as against the ' practical factor of "convenience." Besides, the economical events which have forced up the prices of the necessaries of motor transport have also had their effect on the maintenance of horse transport, and there is no reason to suppose that this effect will not always continue, or that the relative costs of the two forms of goods transportation will not remain, if not thesame, then closely similar.
• When the number of commercial vehicles in use has been doubled—as it will be, and more—the annual bill for repairing them will, in the total, be colossal; even now, the business to be bad by garage owners is great. Yet, how is it that so few of them speaking comparatively, are, actively engaged in.Audying the right way to attract and hold this trade? Long ago it was discovered that the selling of private cars and of vehicles for industrial purposes required entirely different methods ; why is it, then, that this discovery is so rarely being applied to the problem of their maintenance?
If the garage proprietor wishes to aSsert his (to my mind) undoubted and natural claim to act in the service of manufacturers and users, to their advantage and to his own, he has got to wake up to the needs of the hour. Unless he does this, he will drive existing users and the users of the future into making their own plans for repairs, and will then have to fight hard to win back the trade. .
Barring only those fleets of a size to warrant putting down by their owners of the requisite plant and employing the necessary. staffs to keep them in good running order' all this repairs business can be gathered into the hands of the loeal agent and repairer, if he has the wit to see it. Repairs can only be carried out efficiently when there is a sufficient volume to form an " average ' of big and little jobs, that will give a constant intake and output of work to occupy regularly a skilled staff and the organization which controls it. Hence, the owner of a small fleet cannot, acting as his own repairer, compete successfully with the proprietor of a well-managed garage. That he may continuo so to act has nothing to do with the question, except in so far as it shows that, however well-inanaged that local garage may be, its proprietor does not understand the art of salesmanship, for there is no doubt at all but that the owner of the small fleet would be more than willing to get
rid of the worry once he was persuaded that, by entrusting its upkeep to a public expert, he wauld obtain at least as geed results at rather Less expense.
Separate the Two Classes, of Work.
The only possible way of organizing a garage so as to render the utmost service to owners of private and industrial vehicles, and also to carry out their repairs with complete efficiency, is to separate entirely the two classes of work. The private owner, very humanly, dislikes intensely to see his highlyfinished car rubbing shoulders with some huge leviathan of the road, fresh in from a journey with the mud dropping from its mudguards, and, although he may not mention the fact, he gains a disagreeable impression of the place. This consideration, of course, does not trouble the owner of the leviathan ; but even he, I fancy, gains a better impression if he sees his vehicle put into a special department for treatment with others of the same kidney.
Perhaps this seems a trifling argument to advance in. favour of the separation policy, but I believe otherwise. There is far too little studying of human nature in business, though it is this that, in its million variations, each acting and reacting on the other, is the driving force of organized humanity. The business man who, instead of ignoring human nature, makes every allowance for it, is the man who Lucceeds.
But, putting human nature aside, there is another reason why repairs to commercial vehicles should be kept absolutely distinct from those to private cars: I refer to the modern trend towards specialization. The type of mechanic who is excellent on touring cars is usually the wrong one on heavier stuff. To satisfy the private owner, a mechanic must have acquired a respect tor coachwork and an appreciation of delicitey in mechanical adjustments that are somewhat ine necessary as applied to industrial vehicles. I am the last one to suggest that vans and lorries should be knocked about and botched up : that iii uot at all whit I mean. What I am trying to convey is that, whereas the private owner demands attention to his persoma likes and dislikes, thebusiness owner asks simply for quick and accurate workmanship. These two desires vary, remarkably, if you think them out.
Familiarity with the internal mechanism of -a car enables a mechanic to save much time when called upon to execute repairs to it. Already there are so many makes of touring cars, that, in the ordinary way, it is difficult for a garage mechanic to become much of a specialist in any one of them. If the same staffs as are employed in, repairing touring cars have also to deal with heavy vehicles, it follows that their chances of amassing specialized knowledge is very remote. By employing one set of men exclusively en the one class of work, another set on the other, both tend to become, to .sornee extent, specialists, and are thus able to produce more and better work.
I advocate, therefore, tile partition of a garage into two portions, each devoted to one class of vehicle. This may be done by erecting a 7-ft. wooden barrier, constructed so as to be movable in order to adjust the accommodation of the respective portions to suit fluctuations in work ; but, where circumstances allow, it is just as well to make a real job of it and to put up a permanent wall. Office organization and stores need not be divided. They can, indeed, be run beet as a whole. If space is limited, another building should be taken for commercial vehicle repairs, although this would necessitate having its own office and stores, which should he avoided if possible. But, in whatever manner the separation may be brought about, I put it to the local agent and repairer that it is the right and only course for him to pursue, if he wants to secure his share of the trade that is coming.