Background
Valvoline Inc. is one of North America’s leading automotive services providers, with more than 2,000 Valvoline Instant Oil Change℠ locations across the United States and Canada. Ranked the #1 automotive services retailer on Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500®, the company performs more than 28 million services each year and has achieved 17 consecutive years of same-store sales growth.
For a business operating at that scale, consistency matters. Every service center has to deliver the same trusted experience while maintaining strong safety standards, supporting fast-moving operations, and adapting to continued growth across both corporate and franchise locations.
As Valvoline has expanded, so has the challenge of maintaining visibility across thousands of service bays, teams, and business units. What once may have been seen primarily as a security function is now becoming something broader: a way to improve response, support operational consistency, and give teams better information to act on. Through its partnership with Verkada, Valvoline is building a more connected foundation for that next stage of growth.
Built on consistency
When a customer pulls into a Valvoline service bay, the experience is designed to feel seamless. Behind that speed is a highly structured operation. Each 3,000-square-foot service center relies on both top-side and bottom-side teams working in sync, following the company’s 82-step Super Pro Process to ensure every service is completed safely and accurately.
That emphasis on discipline is part of what makes the Valvoline model work. Teams are trained to move quickly, but not at the expense of safety or quality. The same mindset applies across the broader organization, where consistency has to be maintained across a uniquely complex operating environment.
Some franchisees manage more than 200 stores, while others are owner-operators balancing day-to-day service delivery with the demands of running a local business. Across more than 40 business units spanning company-owned and franchise locations, Valvoline is working to create a more unified view of safety, compliance, and operations. Verkada helps support that effort by giving teams a single place to monitor sites, review incidents, and maintain visibility across the organization.
Replacing a patchwork of legacy systems
Before Verkada, Valvoline’s security environment was difficult to manage at scale. Footage often had to be reviewed on site, systems varied from location to location, and support issues could take far too long to resolve. When something went wrong, teams sometimes had to work through multiple calls and disconnected tools just to understand what had happened.
That approach was no longer sustainable for a business growing as quickly as Valvoline. The company needed a platform that could bring greater consistency to investigations, simplify day-to-day management, and scale alongside the business.
By deploying Verkada’s cloud-based Command platform across 1,000 corporate locations, with more than 600 already live, Valvoline has centralized video management and made it far easier for teams to check camera health, review footage remotely, and respond quickly when issues arise.
Even before more advanced analytics are fully rolled out, that centralization is already making a difference. Teams now have better visibility into whether cameras are online, whether footage is available, and what is happening across locations without relying on a patchwork of older systems.
Turning visibility into action
The value of that visibility becomes clearest in moments when speed matters most.
During severe flash floods in Tennessee, pit-side windows blew out at one Valvoline service center and water began flooding the pit below. The issue came to light when Verkada flagged that a camera had gone offline, alerting Valvoline’s Emergency Command Center that something was wrong before field teams were even aware of the full situation.
From there, the team reviewed live footage, checked 22 nearby locations under the same weather watch, and coordinated a broader response. That early awareness helped Valvoline move quickly, close two locations, and reduce the impact of the incident before conditions worsened.
It is a strong example of how security can play a much more active role in the business. Rather than simply documenting an event after the fact, the system helped the team identify a problem in real time and take action to protect employees, sites, and operations.
Building toward deeper operational insight
Valvoline’s vision for the platform goes beyond physical security alone. The company is also exploring how video, alerts, and operational data can work together to give teams a clearer picture of what is happening across stores.
That work is still taking shape, but the direction is clear. Early focus areas include bay-time and queue-time tracking to better understand service flow, POS-linked video through Helix to investigate anomalies such as “no-invoice” events, exception-based reporting across locations, and proactive alerts for incidents like slip-and-falls or unusual activity.
Taken together, those efforts point toward something bigger: a more connected operating model where security data can help surface inefficiencies, flag disruptions earlier, and support better decisions across the business.
Executing at enterprise scale
To support its May 2025 rollout goal, Valvoline coordinated with multiple installation partners in phased deployments designed to balance speed, coverage, and redundancy.
That rollout reflects a broader strength in how Valvoline operates. This was not treated as a one-off security upgrade, but as a large-scale operational initiative that required alignment across teams, clear execution, and visibility into progress along the way.
The early benefits are already tangible: faster incident triage, clearer footage for claims review, improved camera health visibility, and less time spent navigating disconnected systems.
Looking ahead
Valvoline is now building a dedicated Loss Prevention Team that will use Verkada’s Helix dashboards and analytics to identify trends and strengthen both compliance and customer service over time.
Just as importantly, the company sees Verkada as a long-term partner that can support its blended corporate and franchise model as the business continues to grow.
At Valvoline, security is no longer just a reactive function running in the background. It is becoming part of how the company protects its people, supports consistency across locations, and lays the groundwork for smarter growth.
