How Team Toyota of Steubenville Improved Express Service Performance by Finding the Delays Between the Steps
Team Toyota had the people, training, and Toyota Express Maintenance process in place. But express-service visits were still taking approximately 75 to 80 minutes. SKAIVISION helped the dealership identify where time was being lost and bring 88% of express visits below one hour.
in under one hour
Measured against the dealership's own operating standards
A proven process was still producing inconsistent results
Team Toyota of Steubenville was committed to Toyota Express Maintenance standards. Its technicians worked in coordinated two-person teams, with each person responsible for a defined part of the service.
The dealership's physical layout, however, made execution more complex.
The service drive sits approximately 100 yards from the shop. Before technicians can begin work, each vehicle must be written up, walked around, staged, transported to the shop, and moved into the correct express lane.
Each handoff created another opportunity for delay.
Although no single issue appeared significant, the combined impact was pushing express-service times to approximately one hour and 15 minutes to one hour and 20 minutes. Management knew time was being lost but could not consistently identify where.
We had strong people, solid processes, and we were committed to the Toyota Express Maintenance standards. But our express service times were still hovering around an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and twenty minutes.
Real-time visibility across the complete service journey
Team Toyota implemented SKAIVISION to measure the parts of the service process that managers could not observe continuously.
Using the dealership's camera system, SKAIVISION provided visibility into customer arrival, greet time, advisor walkarounds, vehicle staging, drive-to-shop movement, technician waiting, parts-counter delays, and complete key-to-key cycle time.
The platform was configured around Team Toyota's physical layout and operating standards. When a vehicle, customer, or technician exceeded a defined threshold, managers could review the event and understand what was causing the delay.
Instead of waiting for an end-of-day report or trying to reconstruct what happened, the dealership could address issues while they were still affecting the operation.
Customer arrival and greet time
Identify when a customer is not acknowledged within the defined target.
Advisor walkarounds
Surface missed process steps at the beginning of the visit.
Vehicle staging
See when a vehicle remains staged longer than expected.
Drive-to-shop movement
Track handoffs across the dealership's 100-yard physical separation.
Technician and parts delays
Detect when productive time is being lost away from the vehicle.
Complete key-to-key cycle time
Measure the customer journey from arrival through delivery.
The lane was understaffed, not underperforming
Team Toyota expected every arriving customer to be greeted within two minutes.
SKAIVISION showed that some customers were waiting four minutes or longer. Without visual context, those missed targets could have been treated as an advisor-performance issue.
The footage showed something different: the advisors were handling more simultaneous arrivals than the existing staffing model could support.
Team Toyota added another advisor to the lane. After the staffing change, the dealership brought greet performance back below its two-minute target.
The change was simple, but the decision was based on actual operating conditions rather than assumptions.
- Arrival volume exceeded advisor capacity
- Greet times reached four minutes or longer
- Advisors appeared to be missing the process
- Additional advisor added
- Greet time returned below two minutes
- Staffing aligned with actual arrival demand
“I realized my advisors couldn't meet the expectations I was giving them because they were overwhelmed.”
Staging and parts-counter delays were slowing the entire process
Once the lane was operating more consistently, Team Toyota turned its attention to the next points of friction.
SKAIVISION showed that some vehicles were sitting in staging for 10 to 15 minutes before moving to the shop. On a single repair order, that delay might appear minor. Repeated across dozens of vehicles, it reduced throughput across the entire department.
The dealership also discovered that technicians were spending more time at the parts counter than management realized.
Team Toyota created a five-minute threshold for parts-counter dwell. When a technician exceeded it, Ryan, the parts manager, and the dispatcher could investigate immediately.
The dealership then reorganized commonly used parts so express technicians could access them more quickly. This reduced avoidable waiting and helped keep technicians working on vehicles rather than standing at the counter.
Vehicle staging
Vehicles remained staged for 10 to 15 minutes.
Managers received visibility into excessive dwell.
Faster movement between the drive and shop.
Parts-counter waiting
Technicians spent productive time waiting for parts.
Five-minute dwell alerts were sent to management.
Delays could be addressed while they occurred.
Fast-moving parts
Common parts were not positioned for the express workflow.
Frequently used parts were reorganized.
Less technician waiting and more consistent flow.
The dealership did not replace the TXM process. It made the process easier to execute consistently.
Toyota Express Maintenance uses two-person technician teams that work through a defined sequence of tasks.
When the process works correctly, both technicians remain in motion, communicate continuously, and avoid duplicated effort. Ryan describes it as operating like a pit crew.
SKAIVISION did not replace Toyota's process or technician training. It showed Team Toyota where delays outside the actual service work were preventing that process from performing as designed.
After addressing lane staffing, staging, vehicle movement, and parts availability, the dealership achieved:
- Dry services completed in under 20 minutes
- Full maintenance services moved on and off the rack in approximately 20 minutes
- 88% of express vehicles completed in under one hour
Better flow without asking the team to simply work faster
This reflects the complete express visit, not only the time spent on the rack.
Under-two-minute greet target
Visual evidence identified a staffing constraint and supported a targeted lane adjustment.
Approximately 20-minute rack time
Once vehicles reached the express team, full maintenance services could move on and off the rack in approximately 20 minutes.
22 flat-rate hours in one day
One two-person express team produced 22 flat-rate hours during a high-performing day.
Same people. Same process. Same shop. Less waiting.
The improvement came from removing the delays surrounding the work—not from asking the team to work harder.
From reacting to delays to managing them as they happen
Before SKAIVISION, a slow service visit could be difficult to diagnose after the fact.
Was the customer greeted late? Did the vehicle sit in staging? Was the technician waiting on parts? Did a handoff fail between the drive and the shop?
SKAIVISION gave Team Toyota the context to answer those questions.
Managers could see when performance moved outside the dealership's standards, identify the cause, and correct one operational issue at a time.
That visibility helped the dealership move from broad process management to targeted operational improvement.
Once you can see your bottlenecks in real time, you stop guessing. You stop reacting after the fact. You can start managing proactively.
“I couldn't have grown the shop and run it so tight without SKAIVISION. It showed me my bottlenecks.”
Your process may not be broken. You may not be able to see what is slowing it down.
Use your dealership's camera system to identify service-lane delays, staging dwell, missed handoffs, technician waiting, and the operational exceptions that affect cycle time.
