The Elkjær group decided in the autumn to move their production management from the platform Apromas to Tracelink and since the turn of the year they have been using the new solution.

Or rather the new solutions - the workshops' workflows are different. Some of the workshops are claims centers with both a sheet metal and paint workshop, while others are dedicated workshops for either sheet metal work or paint work. It requires different solutions for production management. At the claims center in Ballerup, the director, Michael Elkjær, sits together with Kristian Marinsen, who is the foreman for the plate department, to talk about the benefits.

"We are measured on delivering high quality - quickly," explains Michael Elkjær. ”It requires that we always know exactly where each individual car is in the process - and we have that under control in Tracelink.”

BPM

Tracelink has gradually gained solid experience with production management for paint shops with integration to e-conomic and Forsi - the insurance industry's online database for claims reports. However, the Elkjær group is our first solution for claims centres, where Tracelink not only creates the order on the basis of a paint report from Forsi, but where we need the complete claim report with descriptions of both approved paint and panel work. Typically, the claims center needs to plan the task of booking a loaner car and the like, so therefore there is often a need to create the order in the system before the claim has been assessed and approved by the insurance company. Instead, Tracelink keeps an eye on whether approved damage reports appear in Forsi that match the orders the workshop has already created - and if this is the case, they are matched automatically.

It makes life easier for Kristian Marinsen; "Tracelink requires good discipline, but in return we always have a good overview of our tasks. There can easily be several insurance claims on the same car, but now we can start the orders while we wait for the claim reports to be ready. Above all, I can also manage our loan cars in a calendar which is synchronized with the order list; so that order creation and booking of a loan car can be done in one fell swoop."

Another challenge that the claims centers have is that the transport, paint and plate departments, as well as bookkeeping, are independent units that must cooperate on each order. Sure, you might think, but the challenge lies in making it easy for the sheet metal shop to send the auto transporter off for a car, work on it and push it further into the job queue at the paint shop and vice versa - and be sure that the work is invoiced - without would have to worry about the order while it is in one of the other departments. It requires a lot of automation, which we have implemented with BPM - Business Process Management - with which we can describe work flow in arbitrarily complex organizations.

Subcontractors

In the cases where we are talking about dedicated workshops with independent accounts, it is not enough that you have to create the same order manually in each company. Instead, Tracelink has created a solution based on the fact that one Tracelink customer can be a subcontractor to another company that also uses Tracelink. In that situation, we have made it possible to transfer orders from one company to the other. Specifically, what happens is that when an order at the dedicated sheet metal workshop is set to the status "ready for painting", a new order is automatically created at the dedicated painting workshop.

The solution with several independent companies that can work on the same order, share order information and trigger orders to be started with each other is of course something that can be used by companies in any industry.

Reports and documentation

The Elkjær group has become a certified workshop for both Tesla and Jaguar-Landrover. In addition to training the employees, this status requires additional documentation. Eg. production history reports must be prepared at regular intervals for all Tesla and Jaguar Landrover work. Each of the car brands requires a report with a very specific layout and content. Fortunately, report templates can easily be created in Tracelink, which can create customized reports with all the information already collected in Tracelink, so it only takes a moment to create a report.

”It is important that we can meet our partners' requirements for documentation without too much extra work. And when we know what kind of information they need, we just have to make sure to register it continuously while we work on the car. Once information is in Tracelink, it is easy to order a report button, which pulls them out again in a layout corresponding to exactly what the partners have requested," explains Michael Elkjær.

And then finally; why is there an increase in the amount of car dents in Denmark? Have the Danes got more cars? Yes, definitely - just look at the queues. Have we become worse drivers? Maybe. Are we looking worse? Well, some of us do. But the real reason, according to the web portal samlino.dk, is that partly the cars have become wider (to provide greater comfort and safety) and partly the parking bays have become narrower (to meet the Danes' need for more parking spaces). So the next time you make a dent, it's not your fault, but your car's and Q-Park's business model.

But once the accident has happened, you can drive the car to the Elkjær group.

January 2021