Thinking Out of the Box!

Cast your mind back a few short years. It's 1981. Your working on a 1971 Chevy, say your doing a brake job.After diagnosing the issue you have assessed the repair the car requires pads and rotors. You head off to the stock room and select the required parts, install them and job done.

Simple. The rotors and pads you had in stock covered several models. I was easy to keep stock for popular models as most were covered by the same sku's. Once a week the jobber rep would come around and restock the missing numbers, possibly weed out the “slow movers” and add new sku's that were becoming “popular”. Maybe things were simpler then.

In 1981 I was working as shop manager in the family's Honda Franchise. Honda at the time only had a few models. The Civic, the Accord and the new Prelude. Three models that's it. Yet at that time Honda was already introducing us to computerized parts ordering and the “Just In Time” system of parts stocking. Honda had been using this system at the japannese factory and was building it into the new North American facility in Maryville Ohio. The factory built their cars using the JIT system. Parts arrived at the back door and with in hours of of arriving they were installed. It's a great system. No need to warehouse stock. JIT frees up a lot of capital. Reduce the amount of real estate required, plus it cost money to stock parts. They get lost, break or disappear. Driving costs.

We at dealership were introduced to JIT. Yes; we kept stock, but; the parts manager was informed of what was coming in the next day and parts were ordered. We couldn't order everything .We had the option of two pick ups a day from the distribution centre.... Wasn't perfect, but it was a start.

Today we stock almost nothing. Yes; we carry oil filters for most models.Yes we stock hardware, but, that's about it. The service we get through our jobbers (in our case NAPA) is so efficient that we can get parts within 1/2 hr after placing the order.

Our system tells us what's available, where it is and even what's the most popular choice.

Remember we're dealing with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of part numbers. In effect our stock room has moved location to the jobbers warehouse. No need to tie up real estate to warehouse.

No need to tie up capital. Parts don't get lost, break or disappear.

How many times have you heard “think out of the box”. Well the “Just In Time” parts delivery program is just that. Thinking out of the box. It's not perfect, pretty close though.