ALFAHIM (TagFLEET product case study)
The largest Mercedes dealership in the world partners with TagStone
Al Fahim Group /Emirates Motor Company, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Founded in 1962 in the UAE, Al Fahim Group/Emirates Motor Company (EMC) of Abu Dhabi is the largest Mercedes service center in the world and the area’s exclusive Mercedes- Benz dealer, selling and servicing vehicles from luxury sedans to trucks.
Business Situation:
In the second quarter of 2009, Al Fahim opened its new Mercedes-Benz facility in the Mussafah district of Abu Dhabi. The landmark facility’s service center spans over 20,000 square meters and houses over 250 work bays. With the new service center, EMC is setting new industry standards in customer satisfaction and servicing.
Challenges:
The new facility doubled the throughput capacity of Al Fahim’s service operations, presenting issues of scale and logistics. Al Fahim needed a state-of-the-art vehicle management system to ensure that its existing service processes scaled to maintain or improve key performance indicators, such as check-in time and total service time, in order to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The primary objectives for the vehicle management system rollout were twofold:
- Provide instantaneous customer vehicle location information, minimizing the time and effort required to locate vehicles and alleviating many of the scaling challenges they faced.
- Manage process flows and bottlenecks during the service process. This required real-time visibility into service operations and analytics in order to create efficient workflows and support business decisions. This would have the additional benefit of also improving customer satisfaction through a reduction in total service time.
The Solution:
Al Fahim selected TagFLEET from TagStone, along with integrated wireless hardware and software. TagStone partnered with the Al Fahim management team to design, develop and implement the system in order to address its critical business issues.
The Results:
Since its implementation of TagFLEET vehicle management system, Al Fahim has realized significant operational process improvements and business benefits, including:
- Return on investment achieved in 180 days;*
- Assisted infrastructure throughput increase to 250 cars per day;
- Saved 15 minutes per mechanic for every serviced vehicle in locating the vehicle and bringing it to the service bay;
- 25% reduction in average service time for mechanical workshop vehicles.
Al Fahim feedback on TagFLEET:
“TagStone’s TagFLEET provides Al Fahim Mercedes with value far beyond the basic return on the initial investment. We have just begun to discover new ways of improving our business operations. With vehicle management system, we are confident we have a system that will be able to expand as our business grows.”
Ketan V. Shah, Project Manager, Al Fahim Group/EMC