CR Auto Scheduler® – Production does consider supplements when scheduling.
When an estimator writes an estimate or receives one that has been written by an insurance company, the estimate frequently does not include all the hours required to repair the vehicle. If these supplemental hours are not considered when work is scheduled, a collision repair center could bring in much more work than they can produce. This would lead to poorer cycle times and customer satisfaction levels as vehicles sit around without being worked on. When scheduling a repair, CR Auto Scheduler® – Production increases the estimated hours by a supplement factor that is provided by the user in the Facility Wizard. For instance, if a supplement factor of 20% is entered, then an estimate with 10 hours would be scheduled as a 12-hour job (10 hours x 120%). This ensures that the facility is not overscheduled as a result of failure to consider supplements.
Users of CR Auto Scheduler® – Production and CR Auto Scheduler® – Production ME benefit from the ability of the program to ‘learn’ from the supplement experience of the collision repair center. Because a collision repair center may have a different supplement experience with small versus large jobs or with Allstate versus State Farm jobs, these programs will calculate the average supplements that the facility has experienced with jobs of various sizes and payment sources. These programs will then use these calculated supplemental factors when scheduling jobs.
For instance, when scheduling a small State Farm job, these programs will use the supplement experience on recently completed State Farm jobs that were small. Likewise, when scheduling a large Allstate job, they will use the supplement experience on recently completed Allstate jobs that were large.
By using supplemental factors based upon the experience of the facility with jobs of various sizes and payment sources, these programs can more accurately estimate the size of supplements on jobs being scheduled. This enables a collision repair center to more effectively schedule work that utilizes its capacity without over or under scheduling.