new shop

well Im opening a new shop and Im also kinda new to the biz, but now Im going to start to set up the install bay, I just wanted to know if anyone had any ideas on how to set it up, or if anyone has pics of there own shop I would like to see them.  thanks!!

Make sure you have enough lighting in the bay. Nothing worse that having a bay with poor light ( strains the eyes and makes everyone grumpy ). Place 4 foot flourecent lights on the sides of the work bays to emit light into the vehicles and place them at the front and the rear of the work bays as well. Putting them directly above a vehicle is useless if your always working in the front or the rear or the sides of a car.

Power and air from the ceiling is a must as well as have a community computer for all your installer's to work from to grab wiring information, tech support & general online support instead of having a computer in the front office area. Have all your tools near you on a rolling cart instead of far away. Nothing worse than having to walk around a car 50 times because you keep forgetting something from the work bench.

Don't mess up your tools.. just don't loan them out. Impress upon the people that ask to borrow that this is how you make your living.. this is your life. I once watched someone take a bunch of Snap On tools to the grinder.. just to identify them as his. If someone's gonna take them, the grind mark isn't going to stop them.

Jim

to be organised what i did, a friend of mine does powder coating so i podwercoated metric sockets one color and standard sockets another along with screw driver bits....looks funny at first site but once you know what each color means...it's just like someone passing you the excat one you need...plus it wont wash off like marker

and like they said, lighting is everything...my old shop had a LED trouble light with 30 leds...put out good light but it was all direct light...i went back to the old trouble lights and lighting on the sides of the bay...even though i spent an hour agruing with the boss why not to put them over head (over the car)...oddly enough...that was my last day there..lol..don't know if it was that  or the JL audio rep (who was also the kicker rep around here which we delt with) looking for me because i have since opened my own shop also,

one of the biggest things i suggest, dont limit yourself, don't do just this or just that...the more you do the more customers you will have. and research your products, it's nice to know the history and quality, i'm selling blaupunkt, infinity, memphis, and JBL. which is better then most in this town...