Format — Customers & Operators
Can Have it Both Ways
By Robert Roman

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As investors build more express-exterior conveyors instead of self-service, in-bay automatic, or full-service facilities, the car wash will gravitate towards becoming a commodity, a good or service that is the same no matter who produces it. We’ve seen commoditization occur with motor fuels, generic drugs, computer chips, etc. Today, these products are purchased on the basis of lowest price.

Part of the value proposition that express exterior offers in-vestors is the sales-based marketing approach; increased sales and customer loyalty is a function of benefits, products, and services delivered to motorists and discount pricing.

However, in today’s marketplace, the intellectual capital needed to produce an express-exterior car wash efficiently has become widespread and the benefits can be placed on almost any corner by almost anyone. Arguably, at some point, lower price, faster speed, and free vacuums will no longer be enough to attract motorists.

Without a distinct advantage (e.g., speed, quality, service), operators become susceptible to competition on the basis of price. Unfortunately, low price is the culprit that reduces the “value” of a business owner’s products and services. This doesn’t make good business sense.

Contrary to pundits who believe express exterior is the future of the industry, motorists still need and want services that meet specific needs (e.g. interior cleaning, waxing, shampoo, etc.). Offering these services requires the ability to deploy, deliver, and support a wide range of offerings.

Historically, the full-service conveyor has been the platform from which to launch and manage such services. In recent years, this platform has been criticized as being inefficient and out of touch with operator and customer needs. Please read on, this is not a flex-serve diatribe.

Let’s examine some site sche-matics to see what the hubbub is all about.

FULL-SERVE

The first schematic shows a typical full-service layout on a one-acre site. This layout is similar, sans detail services, to the first car wash I worked at in 1968 and is identical to facilities that I operated and owned nearly 30 years later.

The full-service wash uses a product layout. This layout is used in high-volume environments that require standardized, repetitive processes (e.g., car manufacturing). Resources (equipment, material, personnel) are arranged sequentially based on the routing of the product/service.

Individual tasks are divided into workstations that have approximately equal time requirements; there will be a reasonable balance of work among the workstations to help avoid significant idle time and excess production costs.

If you want to do the work, there are mathematical techniques that can be used to estimate the amount of time an individual task in a car wash system can be delayed without causing a delay in the completion (time) of the car wash service.

Advantages

• Allows operators to deliver a wide-range of services to motorists including “in-store” sales.
• Can generate a large volume of services in a short period of time.
• Unit costs are low at high volume.

Disadvantages

• Expensive to build and operate — it requires a lot of infrastructure and personnel to produce and deliver services.
• Can be stressful because management must constantly juggle things to keep the operation flowing smoothly and profitably.
• Susceptible to absenteeism and high turnover because the division of labor results in dull, repetitive jobs.

FLEX-SERVE

Several years ago, the industry journals began publishing articles trumpeting flex-serve as a sensible alternative to the conventional full-service platform.

The second schematic is a flex-serve layout on a one-acre site. This is a take-off on a serpentine design that was used in 2004 as the basis for Liquid Highway Car Wash, Mount Pleasant, SC. The schematic shows moving platforms instead of individual production cells.

Flex-serve is based on the premise of flexibility, the concept of being responsive to change (adaptability).

For example, Mercedes Benz uses a “flexible service system” to determine the remaining time/mileage before an oil change is due. The maintenance interval is increased or decreased depending on conditions (e.g. cold starts, engine speed) or when oil has been added. In human resources, “flexible benefit services” offer individuals increased choice and control to efficiently select and change services as needed to meet the person’s goals and needs.

Flex-serve also uses a product layout. As shown in the schematic, the line is “paced” with a platform that moves output and personnel along at a continuous rate. Workers can perform operations on the vehicle until they are finished and walk back to the workstation to begin working on another vehicle.

In the case of individual production cells (fixed-position/cellular layout), resources must be taken to the job for on-the-spot performance. This is very similar to working in cross-trained teams of two at the finish line of a full-service wash.

Advantages

• Allows delivery of two levels of express detail.
• High-performance, stay-in-the-car, exterior wash has 36 percent fewer workstations as compared to the full-serve exterior wash process.
• Can be less stressful because there are fewer things for management to juggle.
• Unit costs are lower than full-service.
• Greater control to change services as needed to meet customers’ needs.

Disadvantages

• Can be 10 percent to 15 percent more expensive to build as compared to full-service due to the expense of larger work areas to avoid crowding, additional site work, moving platform, and material delivery/handling systems.
• Individual production cells are less expensive to build but the span of control and coordination can become difficult and more expensive to operate when the work involves a variety of different service rates.
• Takes “full-service” out of the equation, which requires customers, operators, and workers to accept significant change.
• Potentially 70 percent less “in-store” sales due to less customer traffic.

Of course, flex-serve does not have a lock on the concepts of process and continuous improvement. Over the years, full-service operators have overcome some of the inherent problems by offering a dedicated express lane, upgrading equipment to reduce preparation and the need to towel dry at the exit end of the conveyor, and automated tellers to eliminate sales personnel.

HYBRID LAYOUT

Investors and operators also have another alternative: the combination or hybrid layout. A hybrid layout is some mixture of the main layout types — process, product, and fixed-position.

The third schematic is a hybrid layout (see page 38) on a one-acre site.

Features

• Equivalent car wash production capacity and finish quality is achieved with the use of two 60-foot state-of-the-art, stay-in-the-car express exterior conveyors with automated tellers.
• Can handle up to 75 percent of wash volume as “full-service” and express detail.
• The U-shaped line allows workers and management to see the entire line easily and travel efficiently between workstations; supports the rotation of staff to minimize routine and improve morale.
• The layout requires less infrastructure resulting in less site work, smaller buildings, and less support equipment; 10 percent less expensive to build than the full-service example and 20 percent less expensive than the flex-serve.
• Customers can choose express with free vacuums, full-service, and express detail.
• If desired, a separate detail shop could be added at the tunnel parking area.
• Potentially greater in-store sales than flex-serve.

KEY TO GROWTH

Arguably, fast, flexible service delivery is going to be one of keys to the industry’s growth. In this context, it is not going to be any single wash format that is going to be labeled the “killer” application. Instead it will be identifying a killer solution given the dynamics that exist in the marketplace.

Bob Roman is president of RJR Enterprises — Consulting Services (www.carwashplan.com). You can reach Bob via e-mail at bob@carwashplan.com.