BUSI 474 Week 7 Operational Project: Presentation Example

Three Departments, One Engine: What Fixed Operations Contribute to a Dealership

Slide 1: Three Departments, One Engine

• Service, parts and collision at Summit Motors
• What they contribute, how they connect, where they are going

Speaker notes: When people picture a car dealership, they picture the showroom. In this presentation I want to show you the part of the dealership most customers never think about, yet the part that keeps the doors open: fixed operations. Over seven weeks I examined the three fixed departments, service, parts and collision, of a composite store I called Summit Motors. I will share what each contributes, how the three work together and with the sales floor, and how new technology and new sales models are changing them. Along the way I will connect each area to a biblical principle, because few parts of any business depend so heavily on customers' trust.

Slide 2: The Steady Engine

• Fixed gross profit: about $560,000 a month
• Store overhead: about $700,000 a month
• Absorption near 80 percent

Speaker notes: Here is the number that convinced me. Summit's three fixed departments produce roughly $560,000 of gross profit each month, while the whole store's overhead runs about $700,000. That is an absorption rate near 80 percent: four of every five dollars of fixed cost are paid before the store sells a car. When vehicle sales slow, repair demand barely moves, because cars on the road still need brakes, tires and repairs. Research from franchised dealers confirms that this steady contact matters for loyalty too. Fathulloh and Purnama (2024) found that every dimension of service quality, from reliability to empathy, shaped customer satisfaction, and they urged regular technician training. The engine runs on how customers are treated, visit after visit.

Slide 3: Service: Productive, but Leaving Value Behind

• Technicians sell more hours than they work
• Discounts and shallow repair orders cost revenue
• Show the evidence; recommend only what is needed

Speaker notes: The service department is productive; its technicians beat the labor guide. But discounting at the counter means it collects only about 86 percent of its posted rate, and too many customers leave with an oil change and no conversation about what else their car needs. The fix is not pressure but transparency: a picture or a few seconds of video showing the customer the worn part. Baskir (2023) offers a lean method for translating what customers say they value into the service features to improve first. The biblical concept here is honest measure. Proverbs 16:11 credits the Lord with every true weight in the merchant's bag (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). An honest recommendation is the service drive's true weight.

Slide 4: Parts: Stewardship of the Shelves

• Healthy margins, growing wholesale
• 15 percent of stock idle for a year
• 78 percent first-time fill

Speaker notes: The parts department earns good margins, but its shelves tell a story of mismatched inventory: shelves crowded with slow parts while the parts technicians ask for today are missing. That mismatch ties up cash and slows every repair that waits on a missing part. The answer is to stock to actual repair-order demand, return obsolete parts and track every request the counter cannot fill. And the shelves are about to change. A 2023 study of maintenance across electric, hybrid and combustion vehicles found battery failures among the most common faults in electrified vehicles (Krzyżewska & Chruzik, 2023), which means costlier, more specialized parts. The biblical concept is stewardship. Jesus' story of the three servants and their talents asks what each did with the money left in his care, and a parts manager holds the store's capital in trust in just that way.

Slide 5: Collision: Restoring What Was Damaged

• Profitable and factory-certified
• Twelve days in the shop, under two hours of work a day
• Sensors and calibration on more repairs

Speaker notes: The collision center is profitable, but cars wait far longer than they are worked on, mostly for approvals, parts and calibration vendors. Taking cars apart on arrival, staging parts and bringing calibration in-house would shorten that wait. Calibration matters more every year. Neumann (2024) asked drivers about features such as lane keeping, blind-spot warnings and automatic braking assistance and found most felt safer and more comfortable using them, while wanting fewer false alarms. Every one of those systems is a sensor that must be recalibrated after a repair. The biblical concept here is restoration. The law of Exodus 22 required people to make good the damage done to a neighbor's property, and a body shop's calling is to return a damaged vehicle to its owner whole.

Slide 6: What Is Coming

• Electrification raises the skill bar
• Agency sales shrink vehicle margins
• AI scheduling fills the service lane

Speaker notes: Three changes stand out. First, electric vehicles make repairs more complex and safety procedures more critical; Mayorga-Malvárez et al. (2026) describe a virtual reality program built to train after-sales staff in high-voltage safety. Second, some manufacturers are moving toward agency sales, where the factory sets the price and the dealer earns a fee; Kovalova and Vartiak (2024) examined this model for electric vehicles in Slovakia, and where it spreads, fixed operations will carry an even larger share of dealer profit. Third, artificial intelligence is arriving in the service lane: Puzynkin (2026), reviewing published work, reported that automated booking assistants reduced missed appointments by about a third or more. Each change rewards dealers who invest in people and tools early, but in stages.

Slide 7: Three Priorities for the Dealer

• Coordinate service, parts and collision daily
• Invest in skills for electric and sensor-laden vehicles
• Run every department honestly

Speaker notes: If I owned Summit Motors, I would act on three priorities. First, coordinate: a short daily meeting among the fixed managers would solve problems that each department now blames on the others. Second, invest in skills: high-voltage training, calibration equipment and apprentices paid while they learn. Colossians 4:1 tells those in charge to give their workers what is just and fair, and the technicians of the future will choose employers who invest in them. Third, run every department honestly, because fixed operations are built on customers trusting what they cannot check for themselves. Those three priorities, coordination, skill and honesty, are what make three departments one engine. My references are listed in the notes that accompany this slide. Thank you for listening.

References

Baskir, M. B. (2023). A novel belief-based QFD-AHP model in interval type-2 fuzzy environment for lean after-sales service in automotive industry. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 14(3), 653-678. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLSS-03-2022-0055

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Fathulloh, M., & Purnama, N. (2024). Assessing customer satisfaction in automotive after-sales service: A SERVQUAL analysis. Asian Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting, 24(9), 98-110. https://doi.org/10.9734/ajeba/2024/v24i91479

Kovalova, E., & Vartiak, L. (2024). Promoting sustainability in the automotive industry: Economic comparison of dealer sales model and agency sales model of electric vehicles in Slovakia. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 13(3), 551. https://doi.org/10.14207/ejsd.2024.v13n3p551

Krzyżewska, I., & Chruzik, K. (2023). Maintenance and exploitation of electric, hybrid, and internal combustion vehicles. Energies, 16(23), 7842. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16237842

Mayorga-Malvárez, L., Fernández-Arias, P., & Vergara, D. (2026). Electric vehicle training for automotive after-sales professionals through virtual reality. Applied Sciences, 16(19), 9454. https://doi.org/10.3390/app16199454

Neumann, T. (2024). Analysis of advanced driver-assistance systems for safe and comfortable driving of motor vehicles. Sensors, 24(19), 6223. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24196223

Puzynkin, D. (2026). Artificial intelligence in the automotive dealership operating model: From predictive pricing to sales automation and service scheduling. Universal Library of Business and Economics, 3(3), 71-77. https://doi.org/10.70315/uloap.ulbec.2026.0303005