While our official Race Team is an important part of our business model including our R&D, we are very aware off the impact it has to our workshop capacity and customer prioritisation.
As such we have made some key changes for 2024, directly aimed at improving the workshop capacity and turnaround times for our customer base.
The workshop will remain operational even when the race team is away racing. While we were already doing this to a degree in 2023, we still had race weekends where the full workshop had to be closed Thursday until the follow Tuesday. On top of the prep work required at either side of each race meeting, it meant quiet a hefty whack to workshop productivity.
In 2024, there will be no occurrences that require us to close the workshop for a race meeting. We are super excited by this step as it will be the first year we will be able to achieve this in our 10 year history.
Key changes
One of the keys to allowing us to take this step is workshop restructure we undertook last year. In particular our new hires, training and Julian (Jools) stepping up to the role of Workshop Supervisor.
Working closely with our loveable Workshop Manager Harley (Saucey) side, Jools has really taken to the supervisor role like a duck to water.
The other key change for 2024 is that we have reduced the size of our VRRC state team which by far the largest in the paddock in 2023. This means we require less staff to run the VRRC team and leave a team back at the workshop to keep things running.
Saucey will still race himself in the VRRC however Jools will be staying behind to manage the workshop team. So whenever Harley is off racing in the VRRC, Jools will take the reins. On the flip side, when Jools is off with the ASBK team, Saucey will stay behind doing his usual thing.
Another benefit of this change is that we will develop better back up of roles, better delegation of tasks. Over time this should all further boost productivity and turn around times for our cusotmers.
Why is racing important to our workshop?
Yes, racing is at our core, it's part of our DNA. We were a race team before we became a workshop. However our strive workshop performance and customer satisfaction is no different from our strive for race track performance.
The fiercely competitive nature of the race track environment makes us stronger and better in everything we do. Be it all the R&D with bike setups, suspension and tuning OR the attention to detail and reliability needed from our bikes in extreme circumstances.
This all translates to our workshop in terms of quality of work, improvements in the riding experience, delivering leading work and ultimately customer service/
Thanks to all of our loyal customers for their patience and business over the past few years. As we grow we are always looking for ways to improve what we deliver.
Oh and do not fear, while these changes are aimed at improving productivity and turn around times, we will never, ever jeopardise quality!
