Drive Time and Downtime Planner

An operator looking at a body repair estimate is looking at roughly half the exposure. A fourteen day repair on a unit that produces four hundred and fifty dollars a day carries more than six thousand dollars of lost production alongside whatever the shop charges. On a longer structural job the production loss can be the larger figure by a wide margin.

That changes what a good decision looks like. Paying for overtime or a second technician to compress a repair is often cheaper than the days it saves, which is the opposite of the instinct most people bring to a repair quote. It also means deferring a small repair until it becomes a large one is expensive twice over.

Staggering is the other lever. Sending an entire group at once minimizes total elapsed weeks and maximizes simultaneous disruption, which is the version most operations cannot absorb. Running one unit at a time keeps coverage intact at the cost of a longer program. The planner shows both shapes so the trade is explicit rather than accidental.

What no model handles well is parts. On a multi unit program they are almost always the binding constraint, and the delay does not distribute evenly. Five units move through cleanly and the sixth waits a month on a discontinued component. Planning slack for exactly one unit doing that is realistic.