Peterborough based Monarch Automotive is a busy independent motor dealer and vehicle workshop providing essential services such as maintaining and repairing cars, vans, light commercial vehicles and HGV's. They also offer additional products and services including air conditioning, tyres, valeting, windscreens, wheel alignment and regard themselves as an important alternative to main dealerships. They pride themselves on delivering the highest levels of customer satisfaction combined with a personal service and this is acknowledged by their membership of the Motor Industry Code of Practice, which provides independent assessments of customer satisfaction.
Given the large volumes of parts and accessories involved for such a wide range of vehicles, it is essential that Monarch Automotive utilise the most efficient systems to ensure that they effectively manage and track all items in a clear and precise, yet simple way. To do this they rely upon the well-established manual T Cards Direct system which they have used for around seven years. The T Cards system enables all the relevant departments to see at-a-glance, the status of all work and it's proven to be a simple, yet very effective workflow management tool. The challenge however, was how could they replicate the manual T Cards system with an online workflow management system running on their PC's enabling several different users to log-on at any time and view the current status of each job?
Given their satisfaction in using the manual T Cards system along with their requirement for upgrading to an online version, Monarch Automotive were keen to learn more about the development of T Cards Online.
The system enables users to manage workflow in real time using the drag-and-drop technique, moving job cards around the board to reflect current status. It features password-protected login and enables multiple remote access from anywhere in the world. All historical data is maintained so that it can be copied and reused at a later date.
A clear benefit of the new T Cards Online system is its simplicity. Once the virtual board has been configured to meet individual requirements new cards are opened from the main menu bar. There are standard templates for Vehicle Workshops, Parts Ordering and Vehicle Stock Control. T Cards can also be tailored enabling alarms, signals and email notification to be added and there is also a facility to attach external documents. Since a number of cards will appear on the same chart, they can be colour-coded for easier identification and as work progresses the cards are simply dragged and dropped into a new column.
"We looked at various systems, but decided on T Cards Online," Mary Gillespie, manager at Monarch Automotive said. "It replicated our manual based system and required virtually no training. After a quick run-through over the 'phone with the team at T Cards Direct, we started using the system straight away". Commenting on their experience in using the new T Cards Online system, Mary confirmed, "As a work flow management tool the T Cards Online system is excellent, it has enabled us to upgrade from the manual system to one which is easily accessible via PC's in our different departments".
Monarch Automotive's experience in using the new online system is another example of T Cards Online expertise in helping a wide range of automotive companies to explore the benefits of a simple, yet highly effective online management tool. The result is streamlined more efficient management processes, which ultimately leads to improved productivity, saving time and money.