Could a consultant help streamline your MOT business?

Running a company isn’t easy, but bringing in external help could help you streamline your operations, making you more efficient and profitable

No matter how well you run your business, there are always going to be aspects where you could make improvements. That’s where bringing in external expertise can help.

Think of a consultant as a part-time manager, someone who has the time and knowledge to look at things you could be unaware of, or have missed simply because your time is needed somewhere else.

Ask yourself simple questions, such as, do the serial numbers of your equipment match the calibration certs?

If they don’t, then the item is out of calibration. It isn’t as uncommon as you might think. It often stems from a replacement machine being supplied under guarantee, and the calibration engineer taking the details from the last calibration cert.

A good consultant will check these sorts of things, putting them right before the DVSA does.

Why do consultants exist?

Previously, many good garages could expect 2-3 visits a year from the DVSA. These were typically nice people running nice garages, but the bad garages who weren’t so welcoming could have fewer visits.

Not unreasonably, the good guys complained that they had more visits than the bad guys down the road. This brought about the traffic light system, where ‘red’ garages could expect yearly visits and the ‘green’ guys around every three.

But that lead to a new problem. As well-run garages were no longer getting additional training and oversight as before,  standards slipped. This meant a ‘green’ garage could find themselves turning red after years of compliance.

I’ve seen numerous examples of this. One garage owner was infuriated that his garage had been visited by two Vehicle Examiners who had found fault with all manner of things, resulting in serious disciplinary action. He argued that it’d been four years since the last satisfactory visit, but now they were finding things wrong.

Help to stay up to date

While all the information needed to run the station was in the manuals, guides, special notices and other sources, it can be tough to stay on top of things. And that’s where consultants can come in useful.

They won’t be the perfect fit for every business, but they could help solve issues and improve efficiency. Perhaps if you’re wondering how to streamline your business they could be worth looking into.

Find out more on running an MOT centre and what a consultant can do