We've been using vAuto's Lifecycle tool, and it's been working great, giving us some great insight into how it affects both our fixed and variable ops... If you use vAuto and have no other recon process tracking tools, I'd highly recommend using it. Feel free to send me a message if you want to see how we're using or have questions about setting it up! Or you could talk to your performance manager.
It's pretty easy to use and set up. First, you establish milestone dates such as Inventory Date, Service Recon Completed Date, Body Work Completed Dated, Vehicle Detail Completed, Date Price Added, Photos Added, Description Added, Window Sticker Created, First Seen on Website, First Seen on AutoTrader, Vehicle Sold, etc.
Then you can create phases using those milestones --- such as Time from Inventory to Service Recon, Time from Inventory to Clean Up, Time to Adding Photos, etc. Within that you can set goals for each phase, drill down to which vehicles are still in each phase or past the goal, etc. It even gives you a breakdown of averages for each phase for your current inventory and even your historical trends.
