People complain about high dealer service prices. Those Bots (20 grand each?) along with the tech support will quite likely be billed to the dealer service dept. Guess who pays at the end of the line; the customers and/or the mechanics.
I think people are readying to much into this…and the $20k each tells me it’s NOT going to be used except for problems the technician has problems with. I seriously doubt it’ll be used all the time on every job. Just too expensive.
It’s another diagnostic tool…TO HELP the mechanic. NOT to interfere…or take over.
I’ve been on the phone several times with the on-site tech. We’ve even had calls where we had the whole team in a conference room and the tech at the other end. It wasn’t a situation where we’re telling the tech what to do…and how to do it. It’s more he’s telling us what the symptoms are…what he’s tried…where he thinks the problem is…and then there’s a back-and-forth dialog where we (everyone in the room and the tech) come up with a next plan of attach.
Many times after bouncing ideas around it was the tech that had a solution. Sometimes there was nothing the tech could do…and we were forced to engineer a solution…other times the engineer who designed the hardware or software had the solution.
I think you missed the point. The dealer ditches the current crop of mechanics and replaces them with a bunch of minimum wage unskilled workers that know righty-tightly and not much else along with only one sharp guy on the other end of the screen able to run far more sophisticated and integrated diagnostics than you ever had access to in your career. Without raising prices at all, the profit is now better than ever. Think it can’t happen? Well it already has been in practice in manufacturing operations for quite some time. All the skilled assemblers/fabricators and testers have been replaced with low wage, unskilled assemblers working from visual work instructions and using sophisticated test stations that show a red or green flag at the end of the process.
Car manufacturers will shift to assembly kitting so swapping whole assemblies will replace discrete parts repairs. Sounding familiar? It’s a slow process of shifting direction but make no mistake, it’s underway…
The dealer ditches the current crop of mechanics and replaces them with a bunch of minimum wage unskilled workers that know righty-tightly and not much else along with only one sharp guy on the other end of the screen.
That is a possibility…but I doubt that’s the case. Yes the minimum wage flunky is now cheaper then the trained mechanic…but the person at the other end controlling the robot probably gets paid twice what a qualified mechanic gets paid.
And anyone who’s worked on cars - knows you just can’t teach someone about mechanics that way. If it was…tech schools could be taught via You-Tube.
IMHO the only possible purpose for the robot is to oversee the operations. Direct access to engineers at the design center could easily be achieved far more cheaply. And more experienced techs, supervisors, and even mandatory continuing education… perhaps even provided on shop time, say, two hours each week, with courses provided electronically directly from the manufacturers educational facilities (they all have them) would be much better ways of improving technical support at far lower cost.
The robot MUST be an overseer. Occam’s Razor is the proof.
As regards the cost, they’re probably requiring the dealer to pay for it and its operation. Automobile manufacturers routinely require enormous investments by their franchisees far much dumber things.
Nope. No more than if it were human. One overseer per shop is all that’s needed.
Imagine if you were the manufacturer and you want to bring your warranty expenses down. What better tool could you think up than an electronic overseer to enable you to deny warranty claims by the dealer? If something sounds uncertain, look up the recorded actions. If it then still seems questionable, deny the claim.
Besides, as I mentioned, I bet they’re making the dealers pay for them.
The robot is only ONE part of the equation. The highly trained tech at the other end is the second part.
I don’t see how ONE is going to oversea an entire shop of 10 technicians. Second…this Bot is by Audi…Seems to me the person who’d want to oversea the mechanics is the owner of the dealership…NOT Audi. I don’t see Audi getting into micromanaging a dealerships garage.
Manufacturers routinely micromanage the dealerships via the endless expensive demands they make on them. I can’t remember which it was, but one of them even mandated the specific drinks and snacks that the dealers needed to have on hand at all time.
The owners should be overseeing their shops. And I’m sure they do. That doesn’t mean the manufacturers don’t also want to oversee the shops. The two are not mutually exclusive actions.
It’s not a robot! It’s a fancy video phone that has remote controlled mobility. You could accomplish the same goal using face time on an iPAD for example. Something that can be used to share video with the remote expert is all that is really required at this stage. The tele-presence aspect is a marketing gimmick in its current state.
Yes the minimum wage flunky is now cheaper then the trained mechanic…but the person at the other end controlling the robot probably gets paid twice what a qualified mechanic gets paid.
Right, but there’s one of them to every 10 repair guys at the shop. Divide 10 skilled people’s pay in half and employ one really good tech that simply advises them when the normal tool set isn’t adequate. That IS far cheaper and this model is already being employed in other industries.
Another aspect you may have missed mention of is the trend toward sub-assembly swapping. This reduces the dependence on skilled labor. Design in easy to swap sub-assemblies and enhance on-board diagnostics. Send sub-assemblies back to the remote repair facility for refurbishment. Wait! People will say that ends up costing the customer more money. Not so. The most expensive part of the repair process is labor and overhead. Cut those dramatically and the cost will likely be the same to the customer (but more profit to the shop).
I’m not saying it doesn’t have issues and the prospect is sold to management with a very large set of rose colored glasses but it is here and here to stay. It works well enough to be irresistible to corporate big wigs.
BTW- the worst mistake you could ever make is to think you, or the service you provide, is irreplaceable. Those are often the first ones to go…the way to survive is to keep your eyes and ears open, recognize trends and try to stay near the front.
