DealersEdge Professional Forums

A vehicle comes in with a minor problem or warranty work to be done. You diagnose and determine that a part needs to be ordered. It is not a "vehicle down" situation and so the customer takes their vehicle with them. Do you close the repair order and open a new one when they come back in to have the part installed?

That was strongly recommended at a warranty seminar I attended. I like the idea from the standpoint of not having a bunch of old RO's open but it seems that would be logistically difficult to keep track of the parts and customers, not to mention your hours per RO takes a hit and my advisor's salaries are tied, in part, to hours per RO.

Thoughts?

In those cases where a tech has a fair amount of diagnosis time involved, we'll allow a partial flag on the RO and hold it till the part comes in. Otherwise we close 'em out as a no charge ticket.

Paying advisors on "hours per RO" on *warranty* tickets seems a bit odd to me....



Cheers
Doug

Nothing should be left open, everything should be closed. The reasons are long and numerous. Anybody have some real reasons not to?

Growing concensus to close the orders...

Ok. Then help me with a couple logistical issues:
1) Parts department orders the part against the original RO number. That order is now closed by the time the part comes in. How do they easily tie that part to the correct order or customer.
2) Service Advisor turns in his paperwork to close the RO. Customer calls two weeks later and says, "Where's my part?" Service Advisor no longer has RO's waiting for parts in the file on his desk. He can't look up the open order on the system. He doesn't remember who this customer is. How does he track down the part?

Bam,

What DMS are you using?
In R&R, special orders like these are tracked. If the original RO is RO1000, the special order record is RO1000-1.
Parts can also print out a report that lists SO parts that have been received and give it to the advisors.

[This message has been edited by davem (edited 01-26-2005).]

Bam

It sounds like your parts department is not using Electronic Special Order System.
If they are then any special orders will be tied to either the customer and/or the vehicle. So when you create the second RO to install the S/O parts it will give you a promt to carry over the parts.
If they are still using the handwritten Special Order Cards then they should be tracking them by customer name anyway,not by RO#.

ADP tracks the original RO complete with all info regardless of whether or not the RO has been closed. SPI allows one to inquire under a great number of headings-haven't been on my DMS of choice, R&R, for many moons, but it sounds like the failing to track lies with the individuals, whether its automated or otherwise.

Can't track a SOP because the RO is closed! You've got to do better then that! I'll ask again, any real reasons not to close all RO's. In 25 years I have yet to hear a reason that is not tied into someone just not wanting to do their job!

Thanks Joe. I love it when you are rough with me!

joeauto....

Customer arrives with 34250 miles, order part, close ro.

Customer returns @ 36480 , out of warranty?
New ro out of warranty.

Do you rely of your war admin to go through the appeal process, call your rep ?