Unit G3 KNOWLEDGE OF SUPPORT FOR JOB
ROLES IN
THE AUTOMOTIVE ENVIRONMENT
1. Explain using diagrams where appropriate, the key organisational
structures, functions, roles and limits of responsibility, of the
personnel in a typical medium to large company within the
automotive work environment.
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Limits and Responsibilities of Individual Job Roles.
Managing Director / Owner:
Within this job role the individuals would be responsible for overseeing the running of the company
as well as making final decisions. Also known as Dealer Principals they may be involved with
planning, and motivating and co-ordinating the company’s management through leadership.
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Completing evaluation performance reviews and developing short and long term goals with
each department.
Developing and maintaining business plans annually to enhance the company’s
performance.
Creating and maintaining good working relationships with lending institutes and
manufacturer personnel.
Overseeing cost effective advertising programmes and merchandising strategies for the
dealership
Focusing on customer complaints that department managers are unable to rectify and taking
the necessary action to resolve these complaints
Maintaining an enthusiastic outlook to build positive employee attitudes and morale within
the dealership
Coordinating regular meetings with the managers of each department to ensure their
profitability and efficiency
Effectively communicating with the office manager on a weekly basis to review forecasts and
consistency in performance
However a managing director has its own limitations as they may not be skills in the mechanical
areas on the shop floor, this may not be the case with a smaller franchise provider.
Administrators:
General administrators will support the general manager/dealer principal, the sales department, the
service department and the parts department, in performing routine administrative functions such as
drafting correspondence, scheduling appointments, providing information to customers and maintaining
electronic and other files.
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Organising meetings and making travel arrangements for office personnel
Opening, reading and distributing incoming mail
Setting up and maintaining paper and electronic filing systems for records purposes
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G3 Assignment
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Assisting the general manager/dealer principal in additional assigned duties
The limitations of such a career is that you wouldn’t be overseeing the running of the company nor
would you be creating business plans to enhance the company performance.
Finance / Human Resources:
Depending on the size of the company these two areas could be completed within the same area or
department.
A finance department would be responsible for overseeing all financial aspects of a company. They
would also provide advice and support to colleagues on financial matters. They would also be
looking at the following areas:
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Financial planning
Analysing pre-sales cost structures
Completing cost sheets
Managing the end of year audit and quarterly reviews
Completing monthly and quarterly reports
Ensuring wages and bills are paid on time
Human resources would be responsible for hiring and firing of employees, co-ordinating personnel
policies within an organisation, and maintaining functions such as recruitment and organisation
procedures. Other areas may include:
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Working with employees to forecast any employment needs
Determining training needs and designing employee development and health and safety
programmes
Providing all staff with information regarding company policies, job roles, working
conditions, wages and opportunities for progression within the company.
Limitations for these two areas are that they are classed as a non-productive member of the team
due to not selling their activities back to work providers.
Manager
Within the day to day role of a manager they could expect to be involved with the control flow of the
premises or area that they would be in, Relating to the managing director and assist in relieving
them of their work load. They are also expected to take responsibility of various areas within the
garage environment. Other duties may include:
• Building strong relationships with external customers and securing long term business
• Dealing with dissatisfied customers and managing complaints
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G3 Assignment
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Ensuring the department achieves its targets
Planning marketing events and campaigns
Supporting team members in achieving their goals and directing them on day to day
enquiries
A limitation of the manager is that they wouldn’t be responsible for negotiating and advising on
sales costs or marketing of the company.
Supervisors / Team Leaders
Workshop supervisors or team leaders are responsible for looking after a team of technicians and
providing sufficient guidance to enable them to carry out good levels of repair on motor vehicles.
Some supervisor’s on smaller companies may also be hands on, sorting out problems relating to
both staff and customers. They would be in charge of making sure the workshop has the correct
level of flow as well as ensuring that priority work is carried out at the right time.
They may also be involved in:
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Delegating workloads to the rest of the team
Advising customers on minor technical problems
Building good customer relationships
Maintaining high levels of customer service including dealing with customer complaints
Gaining authorisation from customers to carry out additional work
Ensuring good housekeeping and security in the workshop
Managing workshop productivity
Supervisors have a limitation of that they cannot make major decisions without discussing with
either the MD or manager.
Reception
The reception area is really the forefront of the company, ensuring that customers are
greeted and handled in the correct manner; they would need to take calls and messages in
the correct manner. With this in mind they are there to make sure the customer feels
welcome, explains features and benefits reassure and provide a positive attitude.
Typical duties may include:
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Operating the telephone switchboard, answering and transferring calls to the
appropriate people and taking messages
 Documenting customers who visit the dealership
 Performing general administrative duties
Depending on the size of the organisation you may be accompanied by another receptionist.
However limitations of reception staff are they may not always be technical minded and rely
on vehicle technicians to advice customers.
Vehicle Technicians and Trainee’s
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Technicians are the production part of a garage environment, in such a way that what they
do is sold back to the customer. They carry out day to day duties detailed to them on a job
card detailing what needs doing and what time they have to complete. Vehicle technicians
can be found at various levels from a diagnostic technician to a service technician all of
which would have different duties.
Light vehicle diagnostic technicians inspect, maintain and repair vehicles such as cars, and
vans up to 3.5 tonnes. Technicians use diagnostic tools to identify the source of problems
and follow on to make the necessary adjustments and repairs.
The duties of a light vehicle diagnostic technician may include:
• Diagnosing the cause of a problem
• Repairing the problem in line with manufacturers’ standards
• Repairing and replacing vehicle components
• Testing existing and repaired systems
• Checking for problems in newer vehicles with testing equipment connected to the
Vehicle’s electronic control unit (ECU)
• Liaison with manufacturers and parts advisors
A light vehicle service technician services and repair vehicles such as cars. They are trained
in all areas of vehicle mechanics and electronics, from engine and exhaust systems to air
conditioning and security features. Servicing vehicles – carrying out checks and maintenance
according to the manufacturers’ guidelines
• Repairing and replacing faulty parts and components
• Advising the Service Receptionists about required repairs
• Producing time estimates
• Maintaining repair and service records
The duties that an apprentice/trainee may be involved in would include ensuring the
workshop is clean and tidy and also to carry out tasks supervised by the qualified light
vehicle technician. Apprentices should never be left alone to complete work on a customer
vehicle without adequate supervision.
Limitations to these technicians are that they don’t always know a fault straight away and
rely on expensive specialist diagnostic equipment to assists.
Parts Departments
Parts staff are responsible for ordering, selling and managing stock control on a wide range of
vehicle parts and accessories.
Advising customers on how to solve a problem with their vehicle
• Taking orders from customers both face to face and over the phone
• Maintaining an ordered stock room and finding parts from stock
• Raising invoices for parts sold
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• Liaison with other members of staff
Customers may include members of the public, service departments of dealerships, and garages.
Limitations of a parts advisor are that they may be able to fit a part but not be able to diagnose a
fault.
MOT Technicians
Light vehicle MOT technicians are responsible for testing and servicing light vehicles such as cars, to
ensure they are safe to be driven on the roads. The MOT testers carry out the role of a diagnostic
technician as well as being responsible for testing the safety of the vehicles brought to them. These
tests are carried once a year by a registered technician. Technicians may also be involved in:
 Testing existing and repaired systems
 Checking for problems in newer vehicles with testing equipment connected to the vehicle’s
electronic control unit (ECU)
 Liaison with manufacturers and parts advisors
 Ensuring the vehicle is road safe
 Writing service reports on the work carried out
The limitation of the MOT technician could be that they are not responsible for carrying out repairs
and only inspecting at that stage.
Recovery
Recovery technicians are responsible for providing assistance to drivers whose vehicles have broken
down at the roadside, or have been involved in an accident. The duties of a roadside recovery
technician commonly include:
• Driving to the faulty or accident damaged vehicle
• Assessing and securing the roadside situation
• Removing and transporting vehicles from the roadside
However limitations of this role are that not work can be completed at the road side and needs to be
returned to the garage.
All these examples which provide information on the job roles, responsibilities
and limitations are all based on the organisational structure attached
(appendix 1).
Describe how the areas listed below would relate to each other within a
large automotive dealership:
a.
b.
c.
d.
body shop
vehicle repair workshop
paint shop
valeting
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G3 Assignment
e.
f.
g.
h.
vehicle parts department
main office
vehicle sales
reception
Within a large organisation such as a multi-franchise dealership, it’s not unusual to find all of
the above departments. For example one large organisation could be John Grose; they have
a body shop which looks at vehicle accident damage, as well as mechanical workshops that
look at servicing and general maintenance.
How these departments work or relate to each other is fairly straight forward, it all starts
with the sales department that sell new and used vehicles from either a front forecourt
or showroom. These vehicles are purchased by all various types of customer, i.e. private,
trade, businesses, disability, male/female and race. They could purchase by credit
agreements are cash sales and each customer will have their own priorities, some may wish
to have a straight solid colour and other may wish to have metallic, mica’s or even pearls. It
is down to the sales department to ensure the best surface is given to the customer to
ensure they return for servicing or accident damage in the body shop.
Customers should return regularly for either yearly services or depending on the number of
miles the customer has done. Within a service workshop the staff would carry out
various tasks such as oil changes, looking at brakes and steering, they may also change
various filters such as oil, fuel, air and pollen filters and replace. It’s also good practise to
visually inspect the vehicle for any work that could be repaired and advised to the customer,
these items are normally safety items such as tyres, fuel pipes, then hopefully you can
persuade the customer to have these done, making more money and profit.
Should customers be treated well within their time at the dealership they may return for
any accident damage to be repaired with the body shop? Should this happen the first
point of call would be for the customer to call his or her insurance company should this be
the desired route, which would then in turn mean talking to reception. The reception is a
place that members of the dealership staff discuss issues and concerns with the customers.
They would be obtaining vital information regarding the car and the owner, should the
vehicle be going through insurance this is also discussed. Information to be taken would be
vehicle details like make, model, chassis number and colour codes etc. Reception staff are
probably the most important people with the dealership to ensure the customers are
happy. They act as a shop window for the whole company as first impressions mean
everything, they must also ensure they uphold commitments to customers and keep them
informed of progress.
Reception staff would also instruct the body shop estimator normally based with the main
office or workshop depending on the size of the company. It is vital that the estimator
obtains all the details of the vehicle that may have been taken by reception, they would
then observe and discuss the damage directly with the customer to get a clear image of
what and when the accident happened. This information is very important to ensure no
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direct or secondary damage is missed resulting in higher charges at the end of the repair. At
this stage the estimator would pass on all the information to various departments such as
the parts and main office.
Once the vehicle has been estimated and costs agreed the customer would be then booked
in by the reception staff to go into the repair workshop, at this stage a job card with all
the necessary paperwork required for kite marks would be place in a pack along with a job
card and sent to the shop for. The next step would be to go to MET to strip and fit of any
mechanical, electrical and trim items needing to be removed before panel beating can take
place. Once stripped a strip list would be obtained detailing any additional broken parts may
be needed in order that the parts department can organise and get in as soon as possible
and add to the already new parts required for the accident damage. At this stage a quality
control sheet issued by reception within the job pack would be signed to ensure good
standards were obtained. Then the panel repair workshop would rectify any damage
and ensure it was returned to re-accident condition, various tasks could take place
depending on the severity of repair such as dent repairs or replacement of structural or nonstructural body panels. Again once completed a quality control sheet would need to be
signed before heading off to the paint shop.
The vehicle paint receive the vehicle from the panel shop with repairs completed for the
paint technician to carryout tasks such as sanding down new and repaired panels to except
a foundation coating, the vehicle would then be masked up to protect the customers vehicle
and belongings. A foundation coating would include etch primers for bare metal, high build
primers for over repaired filler areas and wet on wet primers for new e-coated panels. The
painter would also seal up any joins at this stage to prevent water leaks and corrosion.
From the primer stage all panels or plastics would be flatted back to except top coat
materials, colour would have been checked and matched to ensure no colour defects would
occur within the solid or metallic coating.
Once painted the vehicle would be un-masked and inspected for surface defects such as dirt
nibs or orange peel etc, before being polished up and the quality control sheet being signed.
At this stage the vehicle would return to MET workshop for rebuilding.
Once fitted back together the quality control sheet would again be signed and the vehicle
sent to the valeting workshop for a courtesy clean. In this process the valeter would
wash and polish all the exterior of the vehicle and hoover out the inside. This again provides
the customer with impressions that the organisation wish to take care of them and should
this unfortunate event happen again they would return.
Once the vehicle has been valeted the keys and vehicle are returned to the reception where
the bill is worked out by the main office before calling the customer to collect the vehicle
at an agreed time. The reception staff would then meet and greet the customer and show
them around their vehicle, at this stage any issues can be addressed or more severe issues
dealt with by technical or main office staff. If the customer is completely satisfied then
reception would obtain a signature from the customer confirming their satisfaction. Then
should it be necessary a charge would be placed on the customer either for the full cost or
the customer’s excess on their insurance.
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G3 Assignment
This is how all of the above departments would communicate and relate to each other, the
final step would be for the main office to ensure that all staff is paid for the work completed
well.
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