Greg Staley and Mark Silverman
Yonge-Steeles Ford Lincoln has become the first dealership in Canada to use a robot to assist service technicians in delivering parts for repair orders and improve productivity and efficiency.
It is a collaboration with Bradley Kalk, Vice President of Forté Performance Systems, a Vaughn-based manufacturer and distributor of high-performance fuel and oil additives for automotive maintenance, and Barrie businessman Greg Staley. He is an Innovation Consultant with Natural Management, which offers personalized training, skill and development, and has implemented robots for various industries.
They figured auto dealerships in Canada could benefit from robots by reducing the time technicians spend retrieving parts and producing more repair orders. Staley created a video presentation and emailed it to about 20 Ford dealers. Mark Silverman, Fixed Operations Manager at Yonge-Steeles Ford Lincoln, expressed an interest.
“This (shop) is more than 60 years (old and) is beaten up, and I said if this robot can work in this environment it can work in any environment,” said Silverman, who has been in the automotive repair business for almost 50 years and has always been interested in innovating within the industry.
Working with Kalk and Staley, the team selected the right robotic model, customized its setup and ran a live trial at the dealership. Kalk, Staley and Silverman demonstrated the robot, which looks like a service cart with a computer screen, to Canadian auto dealer last week. The robot maneuvered flawlessly because of its autonomous abilities, using sensors that guide it.
“At the end of the day, what is the goal of having this robot? Just to have something different? No. I’m not interested in that. It has to have a function and I have to be able to get my money back somehow,” said Silverman.
Yonge-Steeles Ford Lincoln is the biggest Ford dealer in Canada with 40 technicians, 40 bays, 10 service advisors and three people at the parts counter. He said the dealership averages 180 work orders per day and sells 3,500 cars per year.
Silverman stressed he is not an advocate of replacing humans with robots. “I don’t believe in that. What I figured out is this will make my shop more efficient and more productivity will come out of it.”
Staley said the robot can cut in half the total time a technician makes an order, retrieves it from the parts department, and returns to the work bay. With the robot, the technician doesn’t have to leave the bay because the order is processed at the counter and put on the robot for delivery. Staley said his brother built an app specifically for this use. It indicated Yonge-Steeles Ford Lincoln could potentially save more than $500,000 in a year in lost revenue due to repair order downtime.
“There are so many different opportunities for robotics and, really, what it comes down to, is, does it make financial sense?” said Staley. “Is there a return on investment? If only one tech in Yonge-Steeles Ford uses the robot per day, it would result in $58.59 in revenue through time efficiencies. I can lease the robot for as little as $38 per day. It doesn’t take a lot to have a return on this investment. It’s a no-brainer to move forward with the technology.”
The robots can also be purchased.
