Torque Precision Auto Business Plan — Operations and the Bay Build

The build from four bays to ten, equipment and premises capital, workshop layout, and why revenue per bay more than doubles without adding bays faster.

Operations and the Bay Build

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6.1 The bay build
6.2 Equipment and premises
6.3 Workshop layout and flow
6.4 Where this workshop sits against the alternatives

Figure 11. Bay build and revenue per bay.

6.1 The bay build

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5
Bays in operation	4	6	8	9	10
Bays added in the year	4	2	2	1	1
Qualified technicians	4	6	8	9	10
Apprentices	—	2	3	3	3
Revenue per bay, R	1 207 250	1 863 000	2 356 875	2 663 889	2 843 400
Book hours per bay	811	1 210	1 488	1 651	1 746
Parts attachment ratio	0.95	1.02	1.08	1.12	1.14

6.2 Equipment and premises

Figure 12. Equipment and fit-out capital.

Item	R	Depreciation life	Note
Vehicle lifts and bay equipment, 10 bays	1 320 000	10 years	Two-post and four-post lifts, jacks, stands, bay tooling; phased with bay commissioning
Diagnostic equipment and initial data subscriptions	680 000	5 years	Multi-marque scan platform, oscilloscope, programming capability, first-year subscriptions
Wheel alignment, balancing and tyre equipment	420 000	8 years	Alignment bay is a high-margin attachment to routine servicing
Aircon, brake, press, welding and specialist tools	460 000	8 years	Including gas handling and calibration-sensitive equipment
Premises fit-out, oil bay, waste and compressed air	780 000	10 years	Lease improvements, drainage, bunding, reception and customer area
Solar and backup power	410 000	10 years	Compressors, lifts and diagnostics cannot run on an unstable supply
Workshop management system and IT	180 000	3 years	Job cards, book times, parts, invoicing, service history
Courtesy and parts vehicles	480 000	5 years	Customer retention tool and parts collection
Total equipment and fit-out	4 730 000

Lifts and bay tooling are phased with bay commissioning at roughly R132 000 a bay. Diagnostic equipment, premises fit-out, solar and the workshop management system are front-loaded because the first four bays need all of them on the day the doors open. The alignment bay follows in Year 2 as a high-margin attachment to routine servicing, and the courtesy and parts vehicles are split across Years 1 and 2.

6.3 Workshop layout and flow

Zone	Design	Purpose
Reception and customer area	Service advisor desks, waiting area, key management, condition-on-intake documentation	Intake, quoting and authorisation are where leakage is controlled. Documented vehicle condition on intake is the liability control
General service bays	Two-post lifts, bay tooling, parts delivery to the bay	The base load. Parts availability at the bay is what keeps efficiency above 100%
Diagnostic bay	Multi-marque scan platform, oscilloscope, programming capability	The in-warranty proposition. Manufacturer-level diagnosis and electronic service-book recording
Alignment bay	Four-post lift, alignment and balancing equipment	High-margin attachment to routine servicing, added in Year 2
Oil bay, waste and compressed air	Bunded drainage, waste oil storage, compressor and reticulation	Environmental compliance and the shared services every bay depends on
Parts store	Fast-moving stock, tight against a documented list	Held tight. Slow stock ties up working capital the ramp cannot afford
Quality control and road test	Pre-release sign-off station	Rework provision at 1.2% of labour revenue; comebacks destroy both margin and reputation

6.4 Where this workshop sits against the alternatives

Configuration	Labour rate	Capability	Who it serves	Why this plan rejects or adopts it
Franchised dealer	R1 000 to R1 200 and higher	Full manufacturer diagnostics and warranty standing	In-warranty owners who have not yet heard of the guidelines	The price umbrella this plan sells under. Cannot be replicated; not the target
Ordinary independent, unaccredited	R500 to R700	Basic tooling; no manufacturer data; no service-book standard	Out-of-warranty retail on price	The commodity end. Crowded, price-competitive, and cannot touch in-warranty or fleet work. Rejected
Accredited independent without diagnostics	R700 to R900	RMI and MIWA standing but no manufacturer-level scan capability	Out-of-warranty retail and some fleet	Halfway. The accreditation without the capability leaves the in-warranty pool untouched. Rejected
Accredited independent with diagnostics	R795 posted	Manufacturer data, trade-tested technicians, service-book discipline, RMI and MIWA standing	In-warranty and out-of-warranty retail, fleet and insurer	Adopted. The only configuration that reaches every segment in the mix at a price below the dealer
Specialist single-marque independent	R850 to R1 000	Deep on one marque, thin on the rest	Enthusiast and premium owners of that marque	Defensible but narrow. Cannot fill ten bays in a metro suburb. Rejected for this plan

The configuration is not arbitrary. Each rejected alternative fails on a checkable ground: the unaccredited independent on capability, the accredited independent without diagnostics on the in-warranty pool it cannot reach, and the single-marque specialist on the diary it cannot fill. What remains is an accredited independent with manufacturer-level diagnostics posting R795 — and the reason to build it that way is that no other configuration both clears its cost and reaches all four segments in the customer mix.

Capability is the moat, and it costs R680 000

The diagnostic equipment and initial data subscriptions line is 14 per cent of equipment capital and it is the item that separates this workshop from the accredited independent down the road. Without it the workshop can hold RMI and MIWA standing, fill bays with out-of-warranty retail and pursue fleet accounts — and it cannot touch the 25 per cent of work at maturity that the guidelines opened, because it cannot read the codes, perform the resets or record the electronic service book to manufacturer standard. That capability, plus technicians trained to use it and the discipline to document what they do, is the whole in-warranty proposition, and it is why the plan front-loads the spend rather than deferring it until the in-warranty enquiries arrive.

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