How To Calculate Mechanic Efficiency (2024)

1. Utilization rate: This formula uses the total number of billable hours worked by an employee, dividing by their total hours available. This expresses how much of their time goes directly into revenue generating work.
2. Mean time to complete (MTTC): MTTC calculates the average amount of time that elapses between an issue occurring to the task being completed (includes scheduling, repair and billing time). This will help in identifying any bottlenecks that may be slowing down your technicians’ efficiency when completing tasks.
3. Average labor rate: This calculates every cost associated with an employee and divides it by the number of hours worked by the employee. This is especially important when considering the business outputs of hiring more qualified technicians who may expect higher pay.
4. Jobs completed per technician: This jobs completed metric is essential for shop owners. It helps you to stay aware of who your most qualified technicians are and each mechanic’s contribution to the overall efficiency of the company.
5. Shop capacity: Sometimes it isn’t your technician who isn’t productive. Instead, it’s the production capacity of your shop that’s limited! To understand this dilemma, shop capacity measures the maximum output that can be achieved by your current level of equipment.

1. Hire the right people: When figuring out which mechanics to hire, it’s important to have an idea of their skill levels and efficiency. Skilled technicians with more experience may prove expensive when calculating labor costs, but generally correspond with a higher level of productivity!
   
   
2. Provide the right equipment: Making sure your technicians have the right equipment and stocked workstations will build the capacity of your shop while reducing any interruptions or distractions like finding the right tools. Once distracted, it can take up to 25 minutes of non-productive time for technicians to regain their focus. For that reason, it’s important to stay in the zone!
3. Conduct digital vehicle inspections (DVI): In such a fast-paced world, it’s important to embrace technological advancements. DVI is one of those changes that can help your technicians smoothly communicate with any customer! A digital vehicle inspection allows your technicians to send pictures and videos to customers. This helps them keep track of any work being done, provide timely proof of repairs, and speed up the service process.
4. Streamline customer approvals: Setting up an automated approval process allows customers to provide digital signatures from their own devices. This helps reduce paperwork, minimizes data entry,and ensures there’s less lag time between generating an estimate and starting the job.
5. Create a healthy work environment: Maintaining a positive business culture makes all the difference. To create this positive environment,express gratitude. Get your technicians involved by turning to them for ideas and input. These moves will make them feel more valued, important, and give you a new perspective when making decisions.
6. Set clear KPIs: Establishing clear KPIs for your technicians to aim for and a high performance bar can help your team set goals to work towards. Along with boosting their productivity, KPI benchmarks will give you measurable business goals to track.
7. Use effective marketing: If customers aren’t coming through your doors, then you will struggle to meet KPIs goals. This is true regardless of your shop’s capacity or your technicians’ capabilities. To overcome this, leverage effective marketing tactics. These tactics can help you boost the amount of business coming in. As a result, you can remain profitable even in slow seasons.
8. Use a shop management system: Auto shop software such as AutoLeap helps you cut down on tasks that slow down mechanic work! Become more efficient ordering parts, handling invoices, calculating estimates and assigning tasks to your technicians.

» Looking to increase your profits and streamline operations? Discover how our automotive repair shop software can help.