Stock management solutions from r2c Online
Workshop software provider r2c Online has highlighted the importance of efficient stock management in order to mitigate the impact of recent shortages.
“The perfect storm of technician and parts shortages afflicting many workshops and fleets is not likely to improve any time soon, and businesses need to look at digitising their supply chain operation in order to live with these issues,” said r2c Online managing director Tim Meadows.
“The problems are not insurmountable if all your supply chain is linked and you have a long-term strategy in place. This means taking a close look at every part of your operation that could be affected by the shortages and understanding where any time and efficiency improvements could be made.”
Tim cited daily vehicle walk-rounds as one example.
“if these are undertaken by drivers using digital reporting then any upcoming issues can be flagged up to management or workshop on a dashboard before they become an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with,” he advised.
“So if a part is starting to wear, get it flagged and then you can put a timetable in place for ordering a replacement part and booking a slot in the workshop.
“Waiting for a part and a technician is money down the drain. If you are strategic, rather than reactive, then you can free up these important resources.
“As fleets digitise much of their processes through our community platform, time and cost savings can be made throughout the supply chain. We reduce the administrative burden on highly skilled and valuable resources such as technicians.”
r2c Online has upgraded its Stock Management module with a number of innovations that Tim says will help streamline workshop repairs, speed up the supply of parts and optimise fleet usage during the ongoing shortages.
“An issue the industry has is not being able to make strategic, fully informed decisions about how to repair each vehicle,” he continued.
“The wrong choice of supplier can leave that vehicle stranded off-road while the workshop waits for parts.
“Our enhanced Stock Management module shifts that picture entirely: it gives the workshop a complete view of the situation, and allows managers to make decisions based on price, time and availability.
“As a result, the workshop can fundamentally change its business proposition from one of reactive repairer to strategic SMR partner, which is able to help fleets plan downtime, understand and then avoid regular issues they are encountering, as well as manage stock for its customers.”
The Stock Management module has been improved to work for repair agents and their linked workshops. Users also now have the ability to create their own supplier catalogues and add parts to them which can then be managed in the module.
Additionally, users now have better visibility of stock movements on the jobsheet, and can manage stock reserved for jobs with complete visibility via the jobsheet and the stock management module.
Furthermore, users can now mark stock items as ‘discontinued’, which means they can no longer purchase them from suppliers.
