A physical inventory is only as good as the preparation that precedes it. Here are the five most important steps to take before your next count — and why each one matters more than most parts managers realize. 1. Run and Resolve Your Negative On-Hand Report Negative on-hand quantities are a symptom of a broken […]

Walk into many dealership parts departments during a busy morning and watch what happens when a retail customer steps up to the counter. The counter person finishes what they are doing — eventually. The customer waits. The transaction is handled efficiently enough, but there is an unmistakable undercurrent of tolerance rather than welcome. The retail […]

In a dealership service department, time is the inventory. Every bay represents a finite number of billable hours in a day, and every minute a technician spends waiting — for a part, for information, for anything — is a minute of revenue that cannot be recovered. The parts department sits directly at the center of […]

Nobody expects a first-year chef to invent a new cuisine. They expect them to learn the fundamentals, master the classics, and execute consistently. The creativity comes later — after the foundation is solid. Running a dealership parts department works the same way, and the sooner a new parts manager embraces that truth, the faster they […]

For most dealership parts managers, the annual physical inventory lands on the calendar like an approaching storm — something to deal with when it gets closer. That mindset is understandable. There is always something more pressing demanding attention today, and six months feels like plenty of runway. The problem is that the conditions that make […]

In the world of dealership acquisitions, very little goes exactly according to plan. Closing dates shift. Attorneys request last-minute document changes. Financing timelines compress. And somewhere in the middle of all that organized chaos sits one of the most financially critical elements of the entire transaction — the parts department physical inventory — which must […]

In Part One we established something that tends to make people in the industry uncomfortable: most Fixed Operations Managers in small to medium sized dealership operations have deep, genuine expertise in the service department and significantly less practical knowledge of how a parts department actually functions at the operational level. To be clear, this is […]

That may not be entirely fair — but here is what is true: most Fixed Operations Managers have a genuine depth of knowledge about the service department and barely skim the surface when it comes to parts. Acknowledging that gap honestly is not a criticism. It is the first step toward actually closing it. Part […]

In Part One we established something that is uncomfortable but true: most underperforming parts departments are not being held back by a lack of knowledge or a lack of tools. They are being held back by a culture that has quietly accepted underperformance as normal. Changing that is harder than installing a new DMS and […]

Ask most dealer principals or fixed operations directors what is holding their parts department back and you will hear the same answers. The DMS is outdated. The manager needs more training. The stocking guide needs to be rebuilt. The pricing matrix hasn’t been touched in years. These are real problems, and they deserve real attention. […]