New Parts Manager.

[xoomfarr]

Hi all,

I was a back counter man for 2 1/2 years at a 2 man Nissan parts department, and for several years before this I was a front Counterman at chevrolet/kia/suzuki/honda dealerships. During the buy/sell of my Nissan store they asked me if I wanted to be parts manager. I said sure, why not.

The problem I have is I never really paid much attention to what my boss was doing. I know how to bin count, I know how to do stock orders and parts eye.. What else should I be watching for? What helpful things can I do to make my department amazing. My store averaged about 33k a month GP and this first month I'm pacing 45k

I'm a ADP Store.

[Ironchild]

Welcome aboard! We are a 2 man Nissan VW parts dept here on CDK (ADP) Websuite 2007.

Perpetual inventory is huge. By catching discrepancies sooner than later, your chances of finding the error are greater thus helping to keep an accurate inventory. There's no feeling like having the confidence of knowing what shows on the computer is on the shelves.

Keeping tabs on special order parts is another one to focus on. Making sure parts are picked up or used in the shop. We have a policy for pre-payment for special order parts to help minimize obsolescence (which is another thing to keep tabs on). What DMS system are you on? Got more questions......fire away!

[xoomfarr]

I am on CDK Drive (I'm not sure which version..) we are a new DCS switchover (can I automate my morning reports). I found the side bar that pulls out, there is a inventory report- I've been watching that for things sold negative, parts added to the system and such. Are there any more reports I can run on a daily/weekly basis that will help me understand my inventory better?

[Ironchild]

I know Drive is newer than what we are on and I'm not sure of what is the same or not. If you have RPG (report generator) ADP has some canned reports that may be of some use. You can create your own custom reports there as well. I have a few that I made for simple reports on parts within specific bin locations, greater than 12 months no sales, etc...... If you have function PDA you'll love using that also for quickly checking sales history on parts and customers. It has some setups in there as well. SDL has also been a big time saver. Setting up lists of parts and bringing them up using a shortcut of keystrokes. Has worked great for recalls. Can go more into depth on these if you have them on drive and currently aren't using them. A phone call may be easier to explain more in depth than trying to type it all out if you want to know more. I'm not an ADP expert but have learned a bit over the years to make it work for our dealership.

A few others that come to mind are:

RNO negative on-hand report
RAS report special orders
MGR month end reports