Blog Post
Quality Management: Shortening Vehicle Transaction Cycle Time
By Jason Lipes
March 31, 2021
This article is part of a series on Wheels’ dedication to continuous improvement in order to deliver exceptional business results for clients. For additional insight into this commitment, read our first post in the series, “Continuous Improvement: The Importance of Partnerships.”
Wheels employs numerous supplier partners to meet the varied needs of our client base. ACERTUS is a vehicle lifecycle solutions company that offers comprehensive services. In 2017, ACERTUS formed through a merger of three firms: AmeriFleet, MetroGistics and Metro Title. Yet, Wheels’ relationship with AmeriFleet dates back 15 years.
During our supplier partner reviews, we evaluate vendor performance and re-assess metrics to continuously enhance our standard level of service. One of these highlighted an opportunity to improve key parts of the Wheels-ACERTUS service delivery.
The Opportunity: A Faster Road-Ready Experience
Both Wheels and our ACERTUS counterparts agreed there was an opportunity to better define the vehicle paperwork process to eliminate delays in the road-ready delivery experience and increase client satisfaction. In a weeklong Kaizen Event, we defined our mutual goals and determined setting a cycle time metric to include transportation with title and registration services would be the most beneficial to the driver’s experience. With the understanding that each jurisdiction has independent turnaround times, we set a target to have 95% of our title and registration transactions completed within 15 days of receipt of requirements as a standard.
The Process: A Wheels Kaizen Event
To kick off the transactional improvement event, personnel from both Wheels and ACERTUS documented the present state of the vehicle cycle process.
Next, they incorporated feedback from customers into the review. Key customer insights were that the previous document didn’t provide enough information, communication needed improving and there was a lack of visibility into status requests.
The team grouped pain points established by the present state review and customer feedback into key issues. Then they mapped the issues into key solutions, which included:
- Consolidation of requests with transportation and registration services.
- Data sharing on ACERTUS’ web portals.
- Standardization of work documents and quality audits.
To close the Kaizen Event, we mapped out the future state process with a detailed workflow.
The solution: Prioritize action items with clear performance metrics
The final action plan included 62 items that were prioritized by impact and effort to ensure the most critical issues were addressed first.
To measure the future state, incremental performance metrics were established. Expected benefits include improved delivery cycle times and visibility to registration status in FleetView®.
Our focus remains on delivering a road-ready vehicle to the end-user with minimal driver and client involvement. We will continue to seek improvements to meet our targets with focus on improving the experience.
If you would like to partner with us on a continuous improvement project, please reach out to Jason Lipes, senior director of solution services at Wheels, at jlipes@wheels.com.
To provide suggestions on the transportation with registration process please reach out to Natalie Beach, director of compliance services at Wheels, at nbeach@wheels.com.