It starts with something small. A tech wipes their hands, steps around a half-open toolbox drawer, and heads toward the back counter — again. Not because they’re lacking skill. Not because they’re avoiding work. But because the next part is sitting somewhere else, and the job can’t move until the tech does.
That walk looks harmless on a calm Tuesday. But the service drive rarely stays calm.
A busy shop is a maze of rolling carts, tire stacks, moving vehicles, slick spots, and split-second decisions. A tech can be the most careful person in the building, but if they’re forced to cross the same traffic lanes 10, 15, or 20 times a day, the odds of injury stop being “if” and start being “when.”
And when it happens, it’s never dramatic in the moment. It’s a tweaked back from lifting an awkward box alone. It’s a shoulder that nags for weeks. It’s a near-miss behind a reversing vehicle that raises your heart rate for five seconds… so you chalk it up to “part of the job.”
Except it shouldn’t be.
The Challenges No One Talks About
You’re trying to protect technicians and retain them. You’re trying to keep throughput up with the team you have. You’re trying to recruit in a market where experienced techs can pick their shop.
But the day-to-day reality still requires technicians to do something that doesn’t make sense: leave their bay to retrieve what they need to do billable work.
It goes beyond wasting time. It’s wear and tear.
Every extra trip is more steps on concrete. More dodging around vehicles. More carrying. More bending and lifting. More opportunities for minor strains to turn into chronic issues. So the job slowly shifts from “I fix cars” to “I fix cars… and I run errands between fixes.”
You’re Trying to Run a Shop That Doesn’t Burn People Out
You know exactly where things break down. It’s not the big jobs. It’s the small interruptions. A tech gets into a rhythm on a repair, but now they have to stop, walk to the counter, wait behind two other techs, grab the part, and walk back. What should’ve been a smooth job turns into stop-and-start work all afternoon.
Multiply that by every technician. Every day. You see it happen in real time:
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A line forms at the parts counter at 8:30 a.m.
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Your strongest tech spends more time walking than wrenching.
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Someone rushes back to their bay carrying something awkward because they’re trying to “make up time.”
In efficient stores, the “better day” doesn’t look like a giant transformation. It looks like a technician requesting parts from their computer, then going to pull the vehicle, with the parts already waiting at the bay when they return, delivered automatically by a robotic parts runner.
It looks like fewer techs clustered at the counter, so parts can focus on pulling and quoting instead of getting caught up in constant counter traffic.
It looks like workflow changes that don’t require your team to relearn how to do their jobs, while quietly removing the unnecessary back-and-forth that causes downtime.
The Question Worth Asking
Most shops try to solve the technician shortage by hiring. But there’s another lever you control right now: reduce the non-repair work you’re asking technicians to do.
If the service drive is a place where people get worn down, they leave. If it’s a place where work flows and injuries are limited, they stay. So, the question shifts from “How do we find more technicians?” to “Is our workflow helping technicians do their best work or quietly wearing them down?”
What would change if your technicians didn’t have to leave the bay and get parts? What would change if parts were delivered to them instead?
Because that “quick walk to the counter” isn’t just lost time. It’s added strain, repeated movement, and increased risk. The kind that doesn’t show up right away, but builds overtime into fatigue, injury, or a technician deciding the job just isn’t sustainable.
And once you recognize that hidden cost, it’s hard to ignore.
Now the focus moves beyond efficiency to something bigger: How do you create a shop where technicians can do this job for years?
That’s when leaders stop accepting constant back-and-forth as “part of the job” and start redesigning the workflow around their technicians. By using solutions like
an automated parts runner, shops can reduce unnecessary movement, limit strain, and keep their best people doing the work only they can do.
