the action on " the field " ). The participants should include the Service Manager, Service Advisors, Shop Forman and whoever is responsible for dispatch and reservations. It should take 5-10 minutes. The most perishable inventory is time. If there is a shortfall in the 100% goal, what can you do? * Create a " management special " in the areas of shortfall and have the service advisors offer it to owners of vehicles that are either already onsite or have yet to arrive. * Advise the technicians to be extra thorough in performing their MPIs, particularly in areas of needed work. * Advise the people taking reservations to try to bring in new appointments immediately. (e.g. " We had a cancellation and can fit you in this afternoon if you can get here right away. " ) * Are there opportunities to do internal work on preowned vehicle inventory or PDIs? IT ALL STARTS WITH AWARENESS!! If there is a chronic shortfall, then you need to step up your marketing efforts to drive more customer traffic into your Service Department. I have often wondered how a Parts Department would operate if the parts disintegrated on the shelf as the day progressed. How much of an urgency would there be in selling those parts? The same applies to the Service Department. The most perishable inventory is time. It is much more perishable than parts or vehicles. TIME, if you do not use it, is gone forever! Les Silver is Executive Chairman, Dynatron Software, Inc. and Dynatron provides analytics software pricing optimization solutions for Service Department customer pay (CP) labor and warranty labor and parts. Les has pioneered technology enabled solutions for automotive Service Departments for almost 40 years. 34