How many cars should an independent repair shop schedule per technician each day?

Count hours, not cars

Asking how many cars a tech can do in a day is the wrong first question. A tech can do eight oil changes or one transmission, and both fill the day. Start with available labor hours. A tech on an eight-hour shift typically produces somewhere between five and seven billable hours once you subtract breaks, moving cars, waiting on approvals, and walking to the parts counter. Your own shop's number, tracked over a few weeks, is worth more than any generic figure.

Then estimate each job's labor time using your labor guide plus your shop's experience, and add a buffer for diagnostic work, which almost always runs long. Sum the estimated hours for the day's scheduled work and compare it to available hours per tech. When the schedule fills nearly all of the available hours, promises start slipping, and the shop feels it before anyone sees it on paper. Related: When should a shop text a customer for approval on extra repair work?

Keep reading: How do you keep customers informed about their car repair status all day?, What is the best way to run a repair shop job board smoothly?, Why do customers get frustrated waiting for auto repair status updates?. See how GarageTrackr helps you auto repair job board with live status for customers.

Match job types to technicians deliberately

A shop with a strong diagnostic tech and two general techs cannot treat them as interchangeable slots. Schedule electrical and drivability jobs to the person who will actually solve them, and keep the maintenance and brake work flowing to the general bays. Overloading the diagnostic tech with oil changes because they are quick is a classic way to end up with three drivability cars sitting untouched by Thursday. Related: How do you keep customers informed about their car repair status all day?

It helps to keep a simple skills map on the board: which techs are comfortable with which categories. Then the advisor booking a job can see at a glance whether Wednesday's lineup is realistic for the people who will be there. Vacation days and training days change the answer, and the board should reflect them before the appointments do.

Leave room for the day you did not plan

Every shop has walk-ins, tow-ins, comebacks, and the customer whose quick look becomes a four-hour job. If the schedule is full at 8 a.m., all of those become either turned-away revenue or broken promises. Most shops that run smoothly hold back a portion of capacity for unplanned work, often a bay-hour or two per tech, and release it to scheduled work by mid-morning if nothing unplanned has shown up. Related: What is the best way to run a repair shop job board smoothly?

The same logic applies to promise times. If you promise every car for end of day, one long job blows up the entire lineup. Stagger promises through the day so the board shows a steady flow of ready statuses, and customers arriving to pick up are spread out rather than stacked at 5 p.m. The shape of the promise times is a scheduling tool, not just a customer courtesy. Related: Why do customers get frustrated waiting for auto repair status updates?

Use the board to learn your real number

The most useful thing a job board can do here is show you, honestly, what happened. Compare estimated hours to actual hours on each job for a month, and compare cars promised to cars delivered on time. Patterns appear quickly: certain job types always run long, certain days are always overbooked, and one tech's estimates are reliably optimistic. Adjust the daily plan to what the data says rather than to what the schedule wished.

Revisit the number seasonally. Summer air conditioning season, the pre-winter tire and battery rush, and the post-holiday lull all change the mix of job types and therefore the realistic count. A shop that reviews its capacity assumptions every quarter, using its own board history, will schedule more accurately than one working from a number it settled on years ago.