Repair shop owners are facing growing customer demand and, as a result, are looking for ways to improve bay productivity in order to move more vehicles profitably through the shop, according to a recent survey conducted by Rotary Lift.

The vehicle lift manufacturer anonymously surveyed 327 U.S. shop owners about the trend toward faster cycle times. Of those surveyed, 70 percent reported that their average sales amount per shop ticket has increased over the last five years. At the same time, 46 percent reported that the average number of shop tickets their shops handle has also gone up during that time.

So how are shops capitalizing on this increasing demand? Most of them (71 percent) are focusing on improving bay productivity and speed of service so they can handle more business.

Shop owners have taken various steps to achieve these goals. Many have installed faster service equipment. Others have automated customer paperwork, streamlined their services, redesigned the shop layout or changed staffing levels. Profits have increased as a result of these steps for 77 percent of shop owners surveyed.

The cost of doing nothing can be high. More than half of the shop owners surveyed said they have had to turn away business worth an average of $1,582 per month because they lacked the capacity to do the job. That represents a loss of nearly $19,000 in annual revenue. No wonder 92 percent of the shop owners surveyed said they would be interested in equipment that would enable their technicians to complete at least one additional job per week, especially if that equipment paid for itself within a few months.

“For most shops, the one piece of equipment they rely on more than any other is the vehicle lift,” says John Rylee, Rotary Lift director of marketing. “By making the lift faster and easier to use, we can help technicians work more quickly, improving bay productivity and, as a result, shop profitability. That’s the value proposition of our new Shockwave system — it turns Rotary Lift two-post and inground lifts into the world’s fastest lifts, making them twice as fast as other lifts.”

Shockwave-equipped lifts go up in just 25 seconds and down in 19 seconds. Shockwave’s Spotline laser spotting guide and easy-set superstructures enable technicians to spend less time positioning the vehicle for service, so they can start and finish a job more quickly.

Time and motion studies have found that adding a Shockwave-equipped lift to a single bay can enable a shop to complete at least one additional job per week, for an additional annual profit of at least $3,259 (118 days payback).

For more information about Shockwave, contact your local Rotary Lift distributor, visit www.rotarylift.com/shockwave, or call (800) 640-5438. You can also find Rotary Lift on Facebook, www.facebook.com/RotaryLift; Twitter, www.twitter.com/RotaryLift and YouTube, www.youtube.com/RotaryLiftMedia.