RVBusiness, March/April 2018

Developing Technician Database Central to RECT Mission Of course a database must be filled with content The question of what training is offered through what mechanisms is the question currently on the table as RVIA opens this strategic planning process to the entire industry for advice and input RVBUSINESS GUESTVIEW T he RV industry is currently achieving new heights of success Record numbers of RVs are being produced and sold to an ever expanding demographic of RV consumers We truly are experiencing a golden era in the RV world As always however with great success comes great responsibility RV buyers make a significant investment in the products our industry builds and sells and they trust that there are well trained highly skilled technicians available to keep their RVs safe and operational within reasonable repair cycle time frames The recent Repair Event Cycle Time RECT study by the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association RVIA and Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association RVDA clearly demonstrates that better trained techs significantly reduce RECT But while RV sales are increasing the number of proficient well trained RV technicians is at best holding steady or even declining The turnover of RV techs is alarmingly high This is a crisis in the making record sales today translate to record repairs down the road RVers are going to be negatively impacted if they cannot get their units repaired in a timely manner leaving RV owners angry and disappointed The RV industrys reputation and future sales will ultimately suffer The need is urgent and must be addressed immediately For at least 40 years the RV industry has attempted to address RV technician training Those efforts have met resistance with which the RV industry is all too familiar Among those resistors are No hard industry requirements around tech training Service providers so desperate for techs that they pull them out of training and put them to work 32 RVBusiness M A R C H A P R I L 2 0 1 8 Relatively low starting pay for techs Competition from other blue collar trades coupled with the shortage of tradespeople in the United States Back and forth discussions over warranty reimbursement rates Lack of resources to address the entire problem Mixed market motivations around tech training The list goes on and on Past efforts have moved the needle but only so far The good news is that this past October the RVIA Board of Directors passed the following motion By Committee Week June 2018 present to the RVIA board a comprehensive strategic plan that leverages all RVIA departments to increase technical training certification and employment in anticipation of making a significant investment in re inventing RV tech recruitment and training The first step RVIA took to meet this goal was to convene a focus group of RVIA members OEMs and suppliers who are subject matter experts in the field of tech training the people providing productspecific training That group used Six Sigma tools to create environmental maps of the current landscape of RV technician training Using Lean Management to analyze those maps the key areas for improvement became clear Lack of standardized centrally managed training No focused efforts to identify and recruit techs to the career No clear career path for a new or existing RV tech to follow to become a proficient RV tech The group then created this mission statement Improve the consumer experience by providing as many RV technicians as quickly as possible with the knowledge skills BYMATT WALD and abilities to diagnose and fix it right the first time reducing repair event cycle time The hard part of course is how the industry achieves that The answer lies in an all of the above approach that includes as many training offerings as possible from as many training providers as possible in a way that is strategic and highly focused and managed At the heart of this future state vision is developing a central Technician Database In an approach that has proven effective in the aviation repair and maintenance industry RVIA will assign every existing and new RV tech a technician number that the tech keeps for life This allows the database to track all approved training and certifications the technician has completed or achieved no matter the source The Technician Database will be a market based tool that will allow dealers OEMs and suppliers transparency into the training and certifications of the technicians who either work for them or on their products It will allow each stakeholder to make business decisions about what that tech can work on what facilities can be authorized service centers what reimbursement rates are paid and whom dealers or independent service centers can potentially recruit In addition the database could drive future credentialing The vision is that if a tech has a certain number of hours of refrigeration systems trainings as well as hands on repair events for example or holds several refrigerator certifications in the database then that tech earns a refrigeration credential Similarly credentials would be earned with other major components systems or processes This would allow RV techs to focus on a specialty or become a generalist and continued on page 106 Matt Wald is the vice president of strategic initiatives for the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association RVIA responsible for advancing major strategic industry projects including a digital transformation for the association addressing the future state of industry technician training and leading the Repair Event Cycle Time RECT initiative Previously Wald served as RVIAs Park Model RV Executive Director and Director of Government Affairs