Where would you put your renovation dollars?

[PEI]

If you were upgrading your iba site, where would you concentrate first, the car wash equipment or the pay station? Currently I am running twin Laserwash 4000 Docking Dryer's with Hamilton ACW-5 CRC's. The site needs greater through put 5 months out of the year with wait times regularly over 45 minutes at peak times, but also needs to allow a younger more affluent customer base to better pay and interact with the car wash. The site is currently profitable even with a flex serve across the street and another flex serve a half mile away. The nearest iba is my biggest competitor and his site is just over 3 miles down the same street. The other iba is a triple Laserwash 4000 site with freestanding dryers and Hamilton Gold Lines.

 

[robert roman]

The goal for most businesses is to increase profits now and in the future.

For example, assume “currently profitable” means below normal profits and achieving normal profits would require an increase in net operating income of $50,000.

What is limiting the wash from achieving this goal? Some constraints were identified.

One was physical capacity of machine (bottleneck) and non-physical is demand for product (better pay and interact).

Next, subordinate constraints that least limit the business from achieving its goal.

Here, this would be demand for product. So, priority would be to apply most resources to increase the capacity of machine.

There are operational measures to determine whether operations are working toward goal.

Here, throughput is the same as contribution margin (selling price minus cost of goods) and net profit (NOI) equal throughput minus operating expenses.

ROI equal throughput minus operating expenses divided by inventory (improvement investment) and productivity equals throughput divided by operating expense.

Given these measures, you can make decisions by examining the effect of those decisions (how best to increase capacity or raise price) on throughput, investment and operating expense.

A decision that results in increasing overall throughput, decreasing inventory (investment), decreasing overall operating expense or increasing productivity will generally be a good decision.

Hope this helps.

 

[Greg Pack]

For a very economical price you could upgrade your ACWs with cryptopay,allowing high speed processing and online receipt capability.

 

[soonermajic]

what is crytopay?

 

[Randy]

what is crytopay?

Cryptopay is a add on credit card system for in the Self serve bays and the automatic pay station. Here’s link http://www.getcryptopay.com

 

[mrfixit]

Where... Where it will be most profitable.. Getting things up to speed. Considering the wash is taking 5+ minutes they have plenty of time to pay. And IMO the Hamilton does the job.

You make money washing cars not having an interactive pay, you still get the same amount of money until you get more cars through.

If you want to invest 100gs on a new automatic you can, or also look at ways to actually increase throughput while maintaining or increasing cleaning with the current machine.

Many machines are set up to be the most efficient and use the least amount of water, but with that if you want a great wash and great coverage you have to slow things down.

What speeds are you running? Would more water flow in certain passes increase speed capability. (Presoaks)

Dwell time is the last thing you want to reduce, that's what cleans.

 

[DiamondWash]

All we are selling is time.

 

[PEI]

My top package is:
Undercarriage: 35 seconds
Presoak 1: Speed 5 with double front and rear
Soaking Timer: 15 seconds
Presoak 2: Speed 7
Soaking Timer: 15 seconds
High Pressure Rinse: Speed 0 with double front and rear
Foaming Protectant through arch: Speed 7
Mid Pressure Rinse: Speed 9 with double front and rear
Polysealant: Speed 9
Spot Free: Speed 7
Dryer Back: Speed 0
Dryer Front: Speed 0

I know installing triple foam heads and a production arch would increase speed, but I worry about the loss on wash quality.

 

[Waxman]

add crypto pay to cashier.

i'd spruce up the bay with lighting , cleaning, new colored foam protector on arch. new decals on lw 4000 bridge.

maybe add an in bay sign or freshen up old one. add a colored l.e.d. light to top pkg on foam pass.

FWIW; i went to a wash last nite about 40 miles away from my place. they ran g5's and the top pkg was $15 so i got it. what an awesome wash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sometimes if you add some bells and whistles and a few extra passes you can get alot more $.

credit card acceptance is a must.

 

[mrfixit]

My top package is:
Undercarriage: 35 seconds
Presoak 1: Speed 5 with double front and rear
Soaking Timer: 15 seconds
Presoak 2: Speed 7
Soaking Timer: 15 seconds
High Pressure Rinse: Speed 0 with double front and rear
Foaming Protectant through arch: Speed 7
Mid Pressure Rinse: Speed 9 with double front and rear
Polysealant: Speed 9
Spot Free: Speed 7
Dryer Back: Speed 0
Dryer Front: Speed 0

I know installing triple foam heads and a production arch would increase speed, but I worry about the loss on wash quality.

I'm not real familiar with the lw4000 but here's some ideas.

A 45 minute wait is pretty hard to watch... I've been there. Any improvement during these times would help..

I see your first PS is 5 and second 7. How is the coverage on the first compared to the second. Thick?

Could you go to 6 & increase dwell time to 25? If you get poor coverage at 6; maybe you can simply use a larger injector for more water flow. Do you have plenty of head pressure?

For instance, I've moved injectors from .086 (2.5gpm)to .098 (4gpm) with no issues, but much more flow allowing 50% faster speed with more coverage and pressure at the nozzles. I could go higher to bring it to 6gpm injectors and nearly double thw application spees. Just think if you could run ps at 6 or 7 and 9 while getting similar results. Might be good.

Does the HP need to be at 0?

I think you'd get better cleaning with additional dwell time instead. Presoaks the money let it work.. Bump dwells up to 20-30 and move hp to 1 or 2, maybe 3+.

During really heavy peak times. I'm a believer in slightly speeding up areas of the wash that can tolerate it without noticeable loss of quality.. A slight speed increase can mean 20-30 more cars a day when you and everyone else needs it. For us peaks are in the winter so the cars are easier to clean. Use your own descetion with your machine.

Also doesn't the young crowd hate to wait..