Workshop Operations and Scheduling
Workshop operations and scheduling balances bay capacity, technician skill, parts availability and promised completion times. The exam tests appointment planning, work-in-progress control, job dispatch, priority setting and recovery when a job overruns.
Core rules
- Calculate available capacity from bays x productive hours x realistic utilisation; keep a buffer for diagnostics and rework.
- Match the job to a qualified technician and to the required tool or bay.
- Confirm parts availability before promising a slot for a parts-dependent repair.
- Track work in progress; a job waiting for approval is not the same as a job being worked.
- Give safety, warranty and comeback jobs priority according to policy; communicate changes to the customer.
Worked example
Four bays operate 8 hours each, utilisation is 85%, average job is 2 hours. Capacity = 4 x 8 x 0.85 = 27.2 bay-hours; jobs = 27.2 / 2 = 13.6, so plan 13 jobs, not 16. Reason: planning at 100% ignores breakdowns, parts delays and diagnosis.
Traps
Scheduling every bay at 100%; ignoring diagnostic time; booking a job before the part is confirmed; not updating the customer when a job slips; using unqualified technicians for safety-critical work.