By Bodyshop Software Guide · Updated November 8, 2026 · 4 min read
The direct answer
Cycle time describes elapsed time between defined repair milestones. Touch time expresses recorded repair work relative to the days included in the calculation. They answer different questions: how long the repair took and how much work was recorded per included day. Define dates, work-hour sources, exclusions, and the repair population before comparing results or setting improvement targets.
Define the clock before discussing the result
A cycle-time number needs a start, an end, and a day-counting rule. Arrival to delivery is one useful shop measurement, but an insurer report or another software product may use different milestones. Write your chosen definition next to the report. A number labeled cycle time is not enough to establish that two reports are comparable.
Define how the shop handles weekends, closed days, total losses, reopened repairs, and records with missing dates. Avoid quietly replacing missing information with zero. An incomplete record should remain identifiable so the team can correct the data or explain why the repair is excluded.
Keep work hours separate from elapsed hours
Recorded job time, estimated labor, planned hours, and employee attendance are different measures. A repair timer describes work recorded on a job. An estimate describes allowed or proposed labor. A schedule describes planned work. Attendance describes an employee’s shift. Decide which one supplies the numerator before calling a result touch time or efficiency.
For an internal tracked-touch-time calculation, a shop might divide recorded repair-job hours by the production days included for those repairs. That is a measurement convention to document, not a universal formula every vendor uses. Apply one definition consistently and preserve enough detail to reproduce the calculation.
| Measure | Example question | Definition to document |
|---|---|---|
| Cycle time | How long did the delivered repair take? | Start milestone, end milestone, and day-counting rule. |
| Tracked touch time | How much recorded work occurred per included production day? | Repair-job time source and included production days. |
| Stage dwell | Where did the elapsed time accumulate? | Stage-entry and exit rules, including repeated visits. |
| Labor efficiency | How did credited or estimated work compare with recorded work? | Both hour sources and the repair cohort. |
| Attendance | When was the employee on shift? | Shift rules, breaks, and approved corrections. |
Compare the same population of repairs
Choose a cohort before comparing periods. Repairs delivered during the month are different from repairs that arrived during the month or repairs still open today. A delivery-based report can include work performed in earlier weeks. An open-work report can show current risk that has not yet appeared in delivered results.
Read the average alongside the repair count, the range of results, and the mix of work. One complex repair can change a small sample substantially. Investigate the actual records before attributing the difference to a technician, insurer, or software change. A trend is a prompt for a question, not proof of a cause.
Explore the measurements in AutoHound
AutoHound’s report library defines Cycle Time around arrival-to-delivery repairs delivered in the selected period, Stage Dwell around time spent in stages, and Touch Time using tracked hours per production day. Those published definitions give a shop a concrete starting point for a useful reporting demonstration.
Ask the presenter to trace one repair from its dates and work records into the displayed result. Then repeat with an open repair and a missing-date example. AutoHound is worth exploring when the shop wants to understand the records behind the number.
AutoHound report definitions ↗Turn the measurement into one operational experiment
Select a recurring delay that the team can observe, such as waiting for a receiving decision or a handoff inspection. Give the proposed change an owner, a start date, and a review date. Record whether the delay became shorter without creating a new quality, workload, or customer-communication problem elsewhere.
Keep the original baseline and definition. If the team changes when a stage is marked complete or how timers are used, note that change before comparing the next report. Better recording can change a metric without changing the underlying repair process; both improvements can be useful, but they should not be confused.
Illustrative example
Hypothetical arithmetic: a group of repairs records 60 job hours across 20 included production days. Under that shop’s stated definition, tracked touch time is 3 hours per production day. If the denominator were 30 calendar days instead, the value would be 2. The work is unchanged; the definition changed.
Common questions
Is touch time the same as technician attendance?
No. Touch time uses a defined repair-work measure and day basis. Attendance records when a person was on shift and should be evaluated separately.
Why do two cycle-time reports disagree?
They may use different start and end milestones, day-counting rules, exclusions, or groups of repairs. Compare the definitions and trace a sample repair before treating either number as an error.
Should open repairs and delivered repairs share one average?
Keep their purposes clear. Delivered repairs describe completed outcomes; open repairs describe current exposure and risk. Combining them can make interpretation difficult.
Sources & further reading
Product information checked November 8, 2026. Examples and checklists are practical evaluation tools.
AutoHound report definitions ↗Have a detail to add? Send a suggestion.