Security is everywhere in our lives. We lock up everything, from our houses and cars to our cell phones. We lock these things up because we care about them. If I told you that you left your house unlocked, I would be introducing some level of anxiety to your day.

The same holds true in your shop. Chances are, you lock up at night because you want to protect what you’ve built—your assets. Why not protect it during the day as well?  Collision Centers have a variety of products used to repair vehicles from fillers and glues to clips and fasteners. Some of these products are recoverable; all of them are expensive. Securing your inventory only makes sense. But, security isn’t just physical, it’s also psychological, and doing it wrong can be costly to your business.

Physical Security

Physical security is the barrier put in place to protect assets. It’s the brick and steel of a vault. It can protect your materials and affect your bottom line, if properly implemented. The easy answer has been to lock products up in a cabinet or room using a key. Simple and somewhat effective–but inefficient.  The products are expensive, and although the recoverable items represent profit, labor lost due to tracking down the key-holder is the bigger issue. The cost of stopping or slowing production far outweighs the benefits that poor inventory control provides for you.  In addition, trying to find the key, multiple times a day, leads to technicians hoarding products– which defeats the purpose of locking up the inventory.

New technologies now available in security have made accessing products quick and simple for technicians, all while maintaining security and with an added bonus–accountability.  Accountability and security go hand in hand. The more secure a system, the more accountable and vice versa. Why does accountability help security? The answer is psychology.

 

 

Psychology & Accountability

According to the Hawthorne effect1, employees that know they are being monitored will change their behavior and increase production and efficiency. Think of driving down the road and seeing a police car. You instinctively check your speed and adjust accordingly. By regulating access to the inventory, monitoring product usage, and holding technicians accountable, you will see an increase in efficiency, reducing hoarding and waste. Add security into the mix, and you have a complete system.

 

 

Psychology & Perceived Value

When we talk about psychology and security, we are talking about how secure we think something is based on our perception and the perceived value of those items. When we see ourselves on the security monitors at the bank, we perceive that we are being watched. But often, the monitors are facing the people in line, completely out of sight of any bank employees.  Yet, we still feel that someone in a dark room somewhere is monitoring our every move. This is psychological security. It says, “don’t try it, we’re watching,” effectively removing the temptation to do something you shouldn’t. Even though you don’t know how much money is in that bank, your perception is that it must be very valuable. Like a bank, securing your products helps demonstrate their value and reduces the temptation to abuse or steal. If someone will go to the trouble of locking something up, then it must be valuable.

 

 

Secure Products

Studies show that our perceived value of an item will dictate how we use it2. If a product is thought to be expensive, then technicians will be less likely to be wasteful–especially if they know someone is watching. Generally speaking, technicians don’t know the cost of products. Shop owners and stake holders, on the other hand, get to sign the checks for those products. By securing them, you give them value.

The same study shows that people are, by nature, not wasteful. But what happens when their self-interest motivates them to be wasteful? Most technicians are paid for the labor hours they produce. If being wasteful with products causes them to go faster and produce more labor hours, then typically the material profits will suffer. The easier it is to get products, the faster they will be consumed. If a technician is only allowed a few sheets of sandpaper in their station, those pieces will be used efficiently. If there is an open cabinet with three full boxes, material profits will suffer.

The other side of the coin which needs to be considered also, is that if you make it time consuming and difficult to get products, technicians will hoard products. Hoarding products in their stalls leads to loss, theft, and abuse. There must be a balance between accessibility and security.

Conclusion

Physical security that is easy to access, along with accountability made possible through intuitive software, is a way to ensure that the products you purchase are being used properly. The old ways of security can be costly to your business. New technologies are making these complex tasks doable — with added benefits never seen before.

LeanTec is a cloud-based inventory management system like no other. Its hardware makes accessing products quick and simple–all while maintaining security. Its software is robust and makes tracking and accountability easy. To learn more, go to www.leantec.com.

1 The Hawthorne Effect. … The Hawthorne effect is a psychological phenomenon in which participants in behavioral studies change their behavior or performance in response to being observed by the individual conducting the study.

2 The Psychology of Sunk Cost- Hal R. Arkes and Catherine Blumer, 1985


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