LAS VEGAS — MPi, a provider of profitability tools for auto dealer service departments, announced a milestone for its World Class Inspection (WCI) program. For the month of August 2007, dealers using the WCI program inspected over 95,000 vehicles, generating an additional $10 million in customer parts and labor upsells. This is up from $5.9 million dollars in January of 2007, proving the success of the program in service departments nationwide.

Vehicle inspection programs can produce substantial revenue for auto dealership service departments; however, most fail because they are not a consistent and quality process and can't easily be measured. The World Class Inspection Program, launched in January 2007, offers real live process measurement for vehicle service departments and provides service departments with the tools and processes needed to measure, manage and coach desired results. It includes implementation/training, hardware, a measurement system, software tools and field support.

The program is strongly endorsed by many dealers including Paul Rubin, outgoing co-chair of the National General Motors Dealer Council and owner of White Bear Lake Pontiac, GMC in St. Paul-Minneapolis. According to Rubin, within just five weeks of installing the program software, his dealership’s inspection rate went from 8 percent to over 85 percent. Since implementing the program in full, it has further climbed to 94 percent. This overall increase in inspection penetration has helped the service department achieve a monthly sales increase of over $65,000.

“The biggest quantum leap in profitability was when we achieved World Class Status with the reintroduction of all processes to top management followed by the insistence that we do this. It needs to come from top leadership down. Moving from 85 percent to World Class at 94 percent inspection penetration almost doubled the amount of money we got,” commented Rubin. “It is important to reach the upper levels. It’s simple with MPi’s clear, concise, easy measurements that we view once a day on our dealer dashboard,” Rubin added.

The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) estimates that the unrealized potential of automotive aftermarket products is $62 billion or more per year. AAIA finds that consumer neglect of regular care is a result of a lack of awareness and understanding, inconsistent messages, misinformation and misperceptions.

According to Les Silver, MPi CEO, the World Class Inspection Program provides dealers with the tools they need to capture a huge bite of this unrealized potential and improve their bottom line.