Workshop operations
Run the bays — work orders through the board, parts off the shelf, labour hours logged, and what the job really cost against what you quoted.
A job was quoted at €280 and invoiced at €410. Nobody can say where the difference came from, because the parts came off the shelf without a note and the hours were remembered at the end of the week.
This is about running the workshop itself: what is in the bays, what it consumed, and what it cost.
What goes wrong today
- Estimates and actuals never meet. The quote lives in one place and the real cost is assembled afterwards from memory.
- Parts leave the shelf untracked. Stock is right on paper and wrong in the store, and the shortage is discovered mid-job.
- Labour is reconstructed on Friday. Hours written from memory are always round numbers, and always wrong.
- No history per vehicle. The question "have we done this before on this van?" takes a phone call.
- Warranty claims fail on evidence. The repair happened; the record proving it doesn't exist in the form the manufacturer wants.
How Yipii handles it
| Problem | What you use | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing the bays | Work orders in Kanban view | The pipeline as columns — pending, in progress, completed — instead of a list |
| Quote vs actual | Estimated cost on the work order against parts, labour and expenses | The variance is visible on the job, not discovered at invoicing |
| Parts off the shelf | Parts inventory issued against the work order | Stock decrements as the job consumes it, so the store matches the system |
| Restocking | Reorder points and purchase orders | Low stock becomes a PO with a receive step that puts it back on the shelf |
| Labour | Labour lines on the work order, and time tracking | Hours attached to the job while it is happening |
| Vehicle history | Service history per asset | Every job, part and cost against that vehicle, for its whole life |
| Warranty and audit | Work order records plus documents and photos | A defensible record with dates, parts and who did the work |
| Repeat jobs | Service kits | A standard job with its usual parts and labour, one click instead of retyping |
A day in the life
07:30 — The coordinator opens the Kanban board. Four jobs pending, two in progress.
08:10 — A van arrives for its 10,000 km service. The work order was already raised from the service schedule, pre-filled from the service task template with the usual filters and 1.5 hours of labour.
09:45 — The mechanic needs an extra part. It is issued against the work order, so stock drops by one and the cost lands on the job.
11:20 — A failed inspection item on another vehicle has automatically raised an issue. It is converted into a work order and dropped into the pipeline.
16:00 — The service job is completed. The linked schedule resets, the odometer is stamped, and the vehicle's history gains an entry.
Month end — Cost per vehicle, parts consumed and labour hours come out of the system rather than out of a notebook.
What you'll need
- Parts in the system before they can be tracked. An inventory that is only half-entered produces stock figures nobody trusts, which is worse than none.
- Discipline on issuing parts. Stock is only right if parts go out against a work order. This is a habit change, and it is the one that decides whether the numbers are worth having.
- Service task templates for your repeat jobs — the setup that saves the most typing later.
- Roles set up properly, so mechanics can complete jobs without being able to edit everything.
Typical results
| Lever | Assumption | Annual effect |
|---|---|---|
| Recovered under-billing | 2 jobs/month billed correctly, €90 variance each | €2,160 |
| Stock write-off reduced | €4,000 of stock, 8% shrinkage halved | €160 |
| Emergency parts runs avoided | 1/month avoided by reorder points, €60 of time and delivery | €720 |
| Admin removed | 4 h/month reconstructing jobs, €18/h | €860 |
| Warranty claims won | 1 claim/yr succeeding on evidence, €600 | €600 |
Worked examples using the assumptions shown, not measured customer outcomes.
Get started
- Load your parts inventory with reorder points.
- Build service kits for your repeat jobs.
- Switch work orders to Kanban and run the morning stand-up off it.
- Make issuing parts against a work order the rule from day one.
Deciding when work is due? See servicing by distance and fault-code-driven servicing.