“With 3,500 technicians working at 200 shops throughout North America, network consistency in the quality of service and technical proficiency is paramount to the WheelTime Network and its members,” said Mike Delaney, network president and CEO. “We promise quality everywhere we do business, and the sheer size of our network creates training and consistency challenges. Since competition – in any field – drives measurable breakthroughs in efficiency, we decided to look at industry technical competitions for best practices in skill development. We didn’t have to look any further than TMC SuperTech to find them.”
According to Arrants, who has chaired the TMC SuperTech competition since its inception 10 years ago, major fleets have increasingly used TMC SuperTech, as well as the regional and private competitions that lead up to it, as an effective means for developing higher skills and productivity within their own shops. “Creating an intense competition around defined ASE modules and standards at TMC SuperTech puts the focus squarely on fast problem solving with consistency and proven methodologies,” said Arrants. “Gearing up for the competition generates measurable shop productivity gains.”
“The impact of TMC SuperTech on the truck service and repair industry has been significant,” said Delaney. “For those who understand what’s happening behind the scenes, it is very exciting. As we watched fleets evolve from average to outstanding competitors, we could see that techniques were evolving that could be replicated outside of the competition. It is the ability to continuously measure and improve levels of skill in a methodical, duplicable way that really caught our attention.”
WheelTime’s “Total Tech” series offers a platform for training on a wide range of commercial vehicle makes and models. Developed in conjunction with Cengage Learning, “Total Tech” is designed to give techs the knowledge and skills needed to work with today’s advanced diagnostics tools and vehicle operating systems. Its focus on “all-makes” total truck and coach service training was identified as the number one need for the Network, and plans call for “Total Tech” to be expanded in the future to include some of the newer, fast growth areas for the network, such as alternative fuels.
“The key to great techs lies in their ability to see the pattern with the fewest number of dots,” said Delaney. “In other words, they have the knowledge to decode problems quickly.” “WheelTime’s ASE grounded “Total Tech” programs include tools, theories and key learnings that are designed to accelerate the decoding process and ensure a correct fix the first time.”
“Everyone measures fuel and route efficiency as well as load or asset profitability,” said Arrants. “But most organizations struggle to measure training … and you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Training needs to be developed with measurements for specific outcomes to ensure it provides increased profitability through cost savings, reduced come-backs, speed and overall increased productivity.”
