FIXED OPS JOURNAL
for
Built
As many as 200 vehicles
per day enter the threelane interior service drive
at Richfield Bloomington
Honda. The dealership
took one year to build and
opened in August.
service
General Manager Tim Carter had one primary goal when he plotted Richfield Bloomington Honda’s
move next door along West 77th Street in suburban Minneapolis: Create more space to fix cars. Carter surveyed
his service advisers, technicians, parts personnel and other staffers to find out what they needed in a new
dealership. While the boundaries were tight — just 2.5 acres of land — imagination ran high. Here’s how their
fixed ops vision played out in a three-story building that opened in August.
● Dealership: Richfield
Bloomington Honda
● Where: Richfield, Minn.,
a Minneapolis suburb
● Full-time employees:
166
● 2015 vehicle sales:
1,896 new; 1,854 used
● Average number of
service appointments:
150-200/day
● Owner: Tom Wood Auto
Group, Indianapolis
Writeup area
Service adviser Dave
Bukstein enters vehicle
information into a computer at
one of 14 service-adviser
stations on the first floor of the
dealership’s service department.
The store processes between
150 and 200 service
appointments daily.
“We’d like to get in that 300
range at some point,” said
Service Manager Jason
Weverka. “The sky’s the limit.”
● Design, construction:
Renier Construction
PHOTOS & TEXT BY TOM WOROBEC
PAGE 32
FEBRUARY 2016
Finish your tour online
● Automotive News TV feature:
autonews.com/
richfieldvideo16
● Why are there heated
floors? Q&A with General
Manager Tim Carter
autonews.com/
timcarterq&a
● Why hand-deliver parts?
Video interview with Carter
autonews.com/
timcartervideo
Inside drive
Tagged vehicles are lined up inside the service department’s redelivery lane.
Two additional inbound lanes are designated for express and regular service.
The service write-up area can house as many as 18 vehicles before they are sent
to the first- or second-floor service department for maintenance or repair. The
flooring is angled for improved drainage on rainy or snowy days. In addition, the
drainage grates are designed to prevent shoes — specifically those with small
heels — from becoming trapped, thus preventing slip-and-fall accidents.
First-floor express
Technician Prince Grear’s bay (left) is on the
service department’s first floor, which is designed
to handle express service, including vehicle
inspections, light-duty maintenance and wheel
alignments.
Richfield Bloomington Honda supplies each of its
33 service technicians with a toolbox (right).
“There’s a lot of glass throughout the whole
facility,” said Carter. “With that transparency to the
client in mind, we want it to always look very
professional and very clean.”
Carter said there is another benefit to the free storage.
“It’s an employee morale booster, because they get to have a nice, bright, shiny
toolbox that maybe otherwise they wouldn’t choose to spend that kind of money on.”
The dealership also supplies entry-level express technicians with tools, which can cost
as much as $5,000.
Weverka, the service manager, said the perk benefits employees, customers and the
dealership.
“They do not have to carry the burden of school and having to go out and get tools, all
at the same time,” he said. “And we know they are using good, quality tools on the
guests’ cars at the same time. So it is win-win for both.”
CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
FEBRUARY 2016
PAGE 33
FIXED OPS JOURNAL
Tire carousel
Parts employees use a computer
keypad to operate a multilevel,
rotating tire carousel. The system
stores as many as 650 tires and is
about half the size of the tire storage
unit at the previous dealership.
“It’s just way more efficient, and a
great usage of square footage,” said
Gordy Ecklund, parts manager.
The dealership sells about 500 tires
a month. Ecklund said the carousel is streamlined and safe.
“Old tire racks used to have guys lifting tires over their head. With this here,
they just rotate the rack down to what’s comfortable for them to lift a heavy tire
on or off the rack.”
Car wash first
The 90-foot-long, indoor car wash on the
first floor of the dealership is the first
destination for any vehicle designated for
service. After the vehicle is washed and dried,
the driver makes
an immediate left
turn into the
service
department and
designated bay.
As a result, the
clean vehicle never
travels outside.
“The technicians benefit because they are
not dealing with a bunch of ice dripping down
on them,” said Carter. “The facility benefits
because a lot of that [ice and snow] is taken
out in the car wash, and you are not dragging
that through the facility.”
Busy spray
Small body-repair work — from
panel scratches to bumper damage
— is handled in this SherwinWilliams spray bay on the second
floor.
“That bay is full pretty much every
day,” said Weverka. “Ideally, we
would like to see that booth run 24
hours a day.”
Weverka and Carter say some
repairs were previously farmed out.
As a result, it could take a day or
more to get the vehicles back to the
dealership. The on-site bay allows
many fixes to be made within
regular hours.
PAGE 34
FEBRUARY 2016
Rustproof, sounddeadening bay
Twin Cities’ weather can be brutal in
winter.
“There’s so much rock and salt and
potholes that break up,” said Carter.
On average, two vehicles per day visit
this second-floor service bay to receive
an undercoating treatment. The service
helps prevent rust and tone down road
noise.
“We have had overwhelming requests
from clients — mainly from a sounddeadening standpoint,” said Carter.
He said a growing number of usedvehicle buyers opt for the undercoating
service.
Garage door
The massive doors
leading in and out of the
service department open
in about one second.
Carter said the doors were
carefully contemplated, as
the average daily high
temperature in Minneapolis in January is 22
degrees.
“We have high-speed doors primarily to keep the
controlled air temperature in,” he said.
However, he also views the doors as effective
tools to keep service traffic moving.
“We’re doing 150, 200 tickets a day, so you
don’t want a slow door going up with that kind
of volume.”
FIXED OPS JOURNAL
Parking peak
Ramp to rooftop
A two-way parking ramp weaves its way from the
dealership’s ground level to the third-floor, rooftop
parking area. This vehicle exited the second-floor
service department — where technicians handle
reconditioning and warranty work — and is headed
toward the roof until it is delivered to its owner.
“The building is all precast concrete and all the floors
are what we call double tee bridge-deck material, so
you can drive a car on any part of this entire dealership,
on all three levels,” Carter said.
The ramp also leads to a mezzanine level in the
showroom where vehicles are displayed.
“We made an aisle way extra wide going down
through our meeting rooms and our general office to
this mezzanine, and we just drive them right on the
mezzanine,” said Carter. “It’s pretty cool.”
Tom Wood Auto Group
wanted to use every inch of space
at its tall Honda store.
“The more you pay for your land,
the less expensive it calculates out
to go up,” said Carter. “You kind of
maximize the investment of the land
by going up, and that is why we
ended up with parking on the roof.”
There are 140 parking spaces reserved for service and reconditioned
vehicles on the third level of the dealership.
Carter said the 47,000-square-foot, split-level roof deck is an efficient and
safe alternative to storing customers’ vehicles on a leased piece of land
down the street.
“There’s just a whole lot of bad things that can go with that.”
Wheel
reconditioning,
straightening
Many drivers have accidentally
rubbed their ride against a curb.
So the dealership bought a
$100,000 wheel reconditioning
machine that straightens bent
wheels and buffs out scratches.
Only three businesses in the area
provide the service. Carter is
offering to do the work for other
dealers, body shops and
independent repair outlets.
Parts bin
Enter here
Symbols including a green arrow and a red X
direct traffic outside the dealership’s service
department. Sensors automatically open and close the
high-speed doors when a vehicle is entering or
departing the write-up area.
Carter said the layout is vastly superior to the service
entrance at the previous dealership.
“In my old 1986 facility, we had, ‘Pull up and beep
your horn and we’ll open it up.’”
PAGE 36
FEBRUARY 2016
The parts department at
Richfield Bloomington Honda is
spread over four levels — including
two mezzanine areas — to quickly
disperse components to the
dealership’s service technicians.
Carter said the dealership uses
electronic dispatch to ensure a fair
distribution of work among all
technicians.
“And then we use a software program called MPI — multipoint
inspection — that actually tracks the repair order once it is generated,
all the way through parts, to the technician stall, and back to delivery.”
Ecklund said components are hand-delivered to technicians most of
the time. “The longer we can keep the technician in their bay working
— vs. chasing parts — the more efficient we can be for the customer.”
“
FIXED OPS JOURNAL
“My DNA is service.” TIM CARTER, Richfield Bloomington Honda
Waiting room - and more
Employee lockers
As the new Richfield Bloomington Honda was
being designed, leaders carved out space for male
and female locker rooms.
“We wanted to make sure they had a very clean,
very professional-level experience of just coming
to work and changing into their uniform,” said
Carter.
In addition, a 25-seat employee break room is
filled with modern, stainless steel appliances and
a large-screen TV.
Caroline Stone works on
greeting cards as her 2011 Honda
Odyssey is being repaired.
Tables, chairs, couches, free WiFi and 80-inch TVs are among the
amenities in the service
department’s client lounge. Quiet
rooms and privacy chairs are also
available for those who need an
office away from the office.
This was Stone’s first visit to the
new dealership. “When I walked in, I told the service director, ‘This is like
the Nordstrom of car dealerships,’” she said.
“I’m having to wait another hour-and-a-half for my car because we’re
getting the brakes done. I didn’t expect to have to wait that long. But I
certainly don’t mind, because it is so comfortable,” she added.
Carter said the client experience helps separate his store from others.
“It is very important that customers feel like they can either be part of the
busyness of the dealership or they can be separated from the busyness of
the dealership.”
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FEBRUARY 2016