Dan Shine

Have we put together a Fixed Ops Journal Forum program interesting enough that people will want to attend? Mike Weldon says yes.

Mike Weldon, a 66-year-old fixed ops director in California, was the first to sign up for the 2021 Fixed Ops Journal Forum. You can be just like Mike.

Service director David Blackburn gave 30,000 pandemic scans, measuring his employees' temperatures every day. He learned some management lessons along the way.

The phone-based platform is giving customers a direct connection to their service tech.

How an idea sparked by the pandemic turned into a competition and helped form a bond between younger and older technicians.

The crisis that hits the auto industry in 2021 may be a lack of vehicle inventory. And that could result in a sort of dealership déjà vu.

Fixed ops could once again carry outsized influence as a dealership profit center. Especially if the service lane is used to solve a critical challenge: lack of used-car inventory.

This may be a good time for franchised dealerships to get into the collision repair business. The increased sophistication of new-car technology is one of the reasons.

How the coronavirus pandemic disrupted fixed ops in 2020 will continue to dominate discussions in 2021.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated consumers' preference to do a number of everyday tasks — from shopping to ordering takeout — without dealing with a person.

For all of its challenges, 2020 provided some enduring lessons in how to improve service department operations. Just ask Jim Henne of Performance Toyota in Sinking Spring, Pa.

When COVID-19 hit, John Hiester wondered if his techs, when things got slow in the afternoon, would want to pass the time turning wrenches on old cars. Soon, it snowballed into a competition and having the winning car auctioned for charity.

I completely understand the sentiment to put last year in the rearview mirror. But there were remarkable turnarounds, too.

Service managers played untraditional roles in leading their departments through the pandemic, including cheerleader and sanitizer-in-chief.

The Carlisle & Co. Automotive Technician Survey in the fall of 2020 had more than 17,500 responses representing 17 brands across the U.S. and Canada. The survey shows the challenges the industry has with technician satisfaction.