At the heart of the dealer management system development is a drive to digitise dealer processes to allow for easier planning and job cards and the general work allocation of technicians in the workshop.

Among the recent changes announced by Pinewood is a traffic light system that uses a visual job status indicator to identify problems in advance and track the progress of a customer’s vehicle in the workshop or while off site with a specific contractor.

The same system now allows the workshop manager to allocate work with a digital drag-and-drop system. The system can be set-up in full 24-hour shifts and not only links timeslots, but skill sets, to ensure that the correct technician is available for a specific job.

The new planner offers an added benefit where technicians can automatically pick up their next task on their mobile devices using the Tech+ App. Some of the features include preparation of vehicle or customer-specific health checks, video capturing, adding work, issuing lubricants, prepare menu-priced quotes and issuing parts directly to the job with a simple barcode scan.

“To streamline the process, service contracts can be customised and created during a sale, allowing service invoices to charge into the plan, with the account’s postings all taken care of,” says Neville Briggs, Managing Director of Pinewood Technologies.

“By using a menu-priced template for pre-delivery work, each customer as well as evry vehicle type can have its own predefined requirements to simplify the preparation request.