Two trucks show up at your gate at 8 a.m. One truck belongs to an owner-operator, who says he needs a two-hour repair. The other is a driver for a large local fleet, and he fears his repair will last all day.
You have one bay open and one tech available.
Who goes first?
This is a puzzle that’s not easily solved, but hopefully, there will soon be a cheat sheet.
That’s the goal of the Technology & Maintenance Council’s (TMC) Shop Workload and Prioritization task force in study group S.16. During an active meeting Monday at the TMC Annual Meeting in Nashville, task force co-chairs Matt Panning from Tyson Foods and Scott Witt from Virginia Truck Center detailed their ambitious goals for a potential Recommended Practice.
“We’re trying to give the service writer or service manager building blocks for areas where he’s always struggling [with shop prioritization],” says Panning. “We’re trying to address that point where things always go haywire.”
Still in the early stages of their RP planning, the duo recognizes they have a tall task ahead.
