FenderBender- October 2016

The tech shortage solution

STARTS WITH YOU

PAGE 73

Your shop’s hidden profit center:

WHEEL ALIGNMENTS PAGE 29

10 steps to

ELIMINATE PAINT DEPARTMENT BOTTLENECKS PAGE 64

TAKES TWO Bob Waldron says the success of his four-shop Massachusetts repair business comes down to people and processes above all else.

How industry consolidation could HELP YOUR SHOP

The Principles of

PROFIT

Surefire strategies to ensure your business makes more money PAGE 36

OCTOBER 2016 // FENDERBENDER.COM

PAGE 31

AS TRIED AND TRUE AS THE FAMILY NAME.

For successful business owners like the

Regenerus brothers at Alter Collision, reputations are hard-earned and long built. For over 35 years, the DELTRONÂŽ brand has stood by family-run outfits, offering the most advanced refinish technology and solutions their customers can count on for color match excellence, durability and outstanding appearance.

Inc. 2Š2016F EPPG N DIndustries, ERBENDE R . CAll O Mrights / / reserved.

O C T O B Ewww.ppgrefinish.com R 2016

The PPG Logo and Deltron are registered trademarks of PPG Industries Ohio, Inc.

Still the One.

CONTENTS

ON THE COVER

Bob Waldron photographed

by Peter Worrest

OCTOBER 2016 // VOLUME 18 // NUMBER 10

36. Profitability

Bootcamp

Three industry leaders break down the surefire strategies and tangible solutions to help your shop make more money.

BY BRYCE EVANS

46. Perfect Hire

Douglas Sebowa is far different from the typical new hire in a shop; the Ugandan refugee is proving that talent can come from surprising places.

BY TRAVIS BEAN

53. 12-Month

Turnaround

New shop owner John Hayduk quickly transformed Abernethy’s Auto Body into a revenuegenerating machine.

AMY BEAUMONT

BY TRAVIS BEAN

Technician, Tactician Douglas Sebowa is beloved by his teammates for his infectious personality, but it’s his relentless dedication to perfecting his craft that has earned him undeniable respect.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. COPYRIGHT ©2016 BY 10 MISSIONS MEDIA LLC. All rights reserved. FenderBender (ISSN 1937-7150) is published monthly by 10 Missions Media, LLC, 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104. FenderBender content may not be photocopied, reproduced or redistributed without the consent of the publisher. Periodicals postage paid at Twin Cities, MN, and additional mailing offices. FenderBender is a member of BPA Worldwide. POSTMASTERS Send address changes to: FenderBender, 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104.

OCTOBER 2016

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CONTENTS

64

9. Past the Page 10. Update 13. Driver’s Seat 15. Light Hits

31. The Big Idea

Finding opportunity in a consolidating market

» BY KEVIN RAINS

34. On the Business

16. Snap Shop

Want better industry solutions? Start by asking the right questions.

A look at Mike’s Auto Body’s two-building approach

» BY MIKE ANDERSON

19. Quick Fix

ANALYSIS ABRA’s Career Development

Academy NUMBERS Supplements vs. touch

time HOW IT WORKS Sherwin-Williams HP

Process Refinish System

73. In the Trenches

The solution to the tech shortage is right in front of us

» BY DARRELL AMBERSON

74. Questions

American Honda on diagnostic scanning

AWARDS INSIGHT A unique approach

to hiring and growing staff IDEA SHOP Making wheel alignments

a profit center

76. Innovations

One shop’s pumped-up detailing solution

STRATEGY 61. Education+Training

Instilling a “culture of learning” in your team can lead to quick and exponential improvement. Here’s how you can get your team on board.

64. Finance+Operations These 10 simple strategies can help alleviate the common paint bottlenecks found in many shops

68. Case Study

A record winter delayed Tom Martin’s second location from opening on time—but it didn’t prevent the veteran shop owner from finding a unique solution to recover the lost revenue.

LATEST NEWS DELIVERED TO YOU

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OCTOBER 2016

THINKSTOCK, NICK SPAETH

61

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EDITORIAL

SALES

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

PUBLISHER

Chris Messer 651.846.9462

Jake Weyer

MANAGING EDITOR

cmesser@10missions.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Andrew Johnson 651.846.9459

Anna Zeck

ajohnson@10missions.com

STAFF WRITERS

REGIONAL ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER

Bryce Evans

NATIONAL ADVERTISING SALES

Travis Bean, Kelly Beaton

10 MISSIONS MEDIA

CUSTOM CONTENT PRODUCER

PRESIDENT

Austin Becker 651.846.9454 abecker@10missions.com

Tess Collins

Jay DeWitt

WEB CONTENT PRODUCER

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Michelle Allender 651.846.9477

SALES SERVICE SUPERVISOR

Melody Todd 651.846.9468

SALES SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

Carolyn Young 651.846.9478

Jeff Knoespel

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Darrell Amberson, Mike Anderson, Kevin Rains

PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR

Zach Pate

Anders Seefeldt Mariah Straub

Meghann Moore

REGIONAL ADVERTISING SALES

mallender@10missions.com mtodd@10missions.com cyoung@10missions.com

CLIENT SPECIALIST & REPRINT MARKETING STRATEGIST

Katie Cornet

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Nick Spaeth

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Fue Vang

PRODUCTION ARTIST

Leah Shams

DIGITAL DESIGNER

Cat Asteriou

GRAPHIC AND PRODUCTION DESIGN INTERN

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Robert McSherry North Haven Auto Body Greg McVicker Budd Baer Collision Center Steven Morris Pride Collision Centers Mark Probst Probst Auto Body Randy Sattler Rydell Collision Center Kerry Woodson Jungerman CARSTAR

Becca Sugden

» HOW TO REACH US SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE tel 800.869.6882 fax 866.658.6156 email fndr@kmpsgroup.com The annual subscription rate is $72 (U.S.A. only) for companies not qualified to receive complimentary copies of FenderBender. BACK ISSUES Past issue single copies are $8. Go to fenderbender.com/backissues OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER 10 Missions Media, LLC, 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104 tel 651.224.6207 fax 651.224.6212 web fenderbender.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR letters@fenderbender.com ARTICLE REPRINTS For high-quality reprints or e-prints of articles in this issue, call 651.846.9452 or email reprints@fenderbender.com.

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OCTOBER 2016

PAST THE PAGE

COMMENTS, DISCUSSIONS, FEEDBACK AND MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB

[TWITTER]

ONLINE EXTRAS

FROM THIS ISSUE’S SPONSORS Click on the logo below for product information.

Axalta Coating Systems

Kia Motors America

BASF

Lighthouse Communications & Leasing, Inc.

CAPA

Mercedes-Benz USA

@FENDERBENDERMAG

Mitchell International

Car-O-Liner ®

www.car-o-liner.com | 800-521-9696

CCC Information Services Inc.

Nissan North America

ChemSpec USA

NRD

Collision Repair Education Foundation

O’Reilly Auto Parts

Equalizer

Polyvance

Estify, Inc

PPG

General Motors

SATA DanAm

Hyundai Motor America

Sherwin-Williams Auto Finishes

Induction Innovations

U-POL

Innovative Tools & Technologies

Valspar

GM’S CONSUMER INITIATIVE “@GM video illustrates the importance of proper OEM replacement parts at @ NACE_Expo ” @FENDERBENDERMAG

COLLISION C A S T

ON THE EXPO FLOOR “Let's do this. @NACE_Expo Day 2 (4?) #NACEinyourFACE #FBLive @FenderBenderMag” @BRYCEDEVANS

» COLLISION CAST

This month, editor Jake Weyer tackled one of the hottest issues in the collision repair inudstry: pre- and post-repair scanning, calibration and new technology.

CONNECT WITH US ONLINE facebook/FenderBenderMag @FenderBenderMag FenderBender - The Collision Repair Professionals Forum youtube.com/FenderBenderMag fenderbenderlive.com

Vehicle Services Group

fenderbender.com/googleplus

OCTOBER 2016

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UPDATE

Update: The Progress of a ‘Revolution’

When FenderBender looked into the advancements of robotic drying technology in January 2016 (“The Road Ahead,” fenderbender.com/roboticdrying), BodyShop Revolution was in the process of launching its own full-scale collision repair shop—Body Shop Express LLC in San Diego—to serve as a training facility and a model for its Greentech equipment and Theory of Constraints-based repair process.

Today, the shop is pushing ahead with a full staff and a crowded work mix, and Patrick O’Neill, president of Bodyshop Revolution North America, provided FenderBender with an update of its performance after 15 months in business.

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OCTOBER 2016

THE FACILITY The 15,000-square-foot building is split into four sections: body (4,500 square feet), paint (7,000), front office (2,500), and BodyShop Revolution equipment storage (1,500).

There are 13 employees on staff, including six body techs, and a painter, polisher and loader in the paint department, which is housed with one paint booth containing the Greentech E6 fullarch gas catalytic drying machine. There is no prep deck, and staff rolls primer on 98 percent of jobs.

THE PROCESS It’s not enough to simply place gas catalytic drying equipment in a facility— with cars moving through more quickly, processes must conform to avoid bottlenecks. Each employee has been trained on the lean, one-technician-per-vehicle theories pushed by BodyShop Revolution and its Theory of Constraints collision repair model.

Each job starts with a pre-repair diagnostic scan when it arrives for an estimate. Some minor disassembly is performed and all parts are pre-ordered

ROB ANDREW

Body Shop Express is now operating as a fully functional example of BodyShop Revolution’s advanced repair processes and technology

BODY SHOP EXPRESS LLC — LOCATION: San Diego SIZE: 15,000 square feet STAFF: 13 AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT: 264 ANNUAL REVENUE: $3.3 million

PATRICK O’NEILL

at the time of the estimate, so that when a car comes into the shop, it goes into production that day.

“Our touch time is so good because cars are scheduled when parts are here, and technicians get the car the same day,” O’Neill says.

The technician takes his or her assigned vehicle all the way to paint, where it is painted within two hours and then routed back to the reassembly team.

THE NUMBERS The facility had goals of pushing

through 258 vehicles per month and generating $375,000 in monthly sales— today, Body Shop Express isn’t far off those “optimal” projections: The shop repairs 264 vehicles per month and has monthly sales of $275,000. O’Neill says the shop plans to meet its original monthly sales goal by 2017, when it adjusts its work mix.

“The biggest goal was to demonstrate market-best metrics to four insurance companies simultaneously without being more prejudiced to one insurance company over another,” O’Neill says. The

current approach has given the facility a larger number of smaller repairs than it would take on under normal conditions.

Body Shop Express averages 8–10 cycles per day through one paint booth, and produces 10–14 finished cars per day (the shop can fit in two ROs per cycle). Cycle time rests around 3.9 days for all jobs. For heavy hits ($4,500 and up), cycle time is 6.2 days, and touch time is 6.2 hours.

With cycle times improving each month, O’Neill hopes to add more insurance companies and turn away some of the smaller repairs supplied by its current arrangement with Enterprise. Eventually O’Neill says the shop will reach an annual revenue of $5.4 million.

OCTOBER 2016

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DRIVER’S SEAT

Perspective Since I started here at 10 Missions Media in 2011, the editorial team has

grown from myself and one other staff writer to a team of seven. The company as a whole has grown from 13 on staff to 25.

We have added a second national publication (Ratchet+Wrench serves the auto care industry; if you do mechanical work you need to read it). We have launched and overhauled websites, introduced e-newsletters and multimedia content, and organized live events. As I write this, I’m a day away from boarding a plane to the second-annual FenderBender Management Conference in Chicago—something I never would have seen myself doing five years ago.

I don’t mention all of this in an attempt to boast. Plainly what I want to get across is that we’ve been busy, and when you’re busy at a growing company, sometimes you don’t have the time to put that growth in perspective and really appreciate the people and processes that make it possible. Often the opposite takes place—you focus on the day-today, on the problems and imperfections, and rectifying those things.

I am as guilty of this as anyone, but we have started an exercise during editorial meetings that I think has helped everyone see the bigger picture.

10 Missions Media isn’t just a name. We actually do have 10 missions; our company’s guiding principles. For example, haste makes waste, but timeliness is vital, or co-workers make the best comrades. At the end of each editorial review meeting (we have two per month), an employee recites a mission (it rotates to a new employee each meeting).

The employee talks about why the mission is relevant at that moment, citing examples of how the team exemplifies it.

The observations brought up in these meetings are enlightening and sometimes even moving. It gives everyone a chance to catch their breath and remember why we do what we do. You don’t need 10 missions to do something similar. Growth is great, but don’t lose sight of what makes it possible.

Jake Weyer, editorial director jweyer@fenderbender.com

OCTOBER 2016

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OCTOBER 2016

LIGHT HITS

Your Industry’s News, in Brief MYHYUNDAI APP ALERTS DRIVERS TO DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODES

Hyundai has debuted its new mobile app for Hyundai owners, called MyHyundai.

The new app combines features previously seen in the separate Blue Link and Car Care mobile apps. With the new app, owners are able to remote start their vehicle, schedule service, and get vehicle diagnostics, among other features. Hyundai says even more features will be added to the app in the future.

The app will also alert Blue Link subscribers of an active diagnostic trouble code (DTC) and the severity of the problem.

“Hyundai is constantly striving to make things better. Bundling all of these great services into one app simplifies and enhances the ownership experience for our customers,” said Barry Ratzlaff, executive director, digital business planning and connected operations, Hyundai Motor America. “The ‘There Is an App for That’ movement has caused a lot of clutter on cellphones and we hope our approach keeps that clutter down to a minimum. Look for Hyundai to continue to deliver more through this one-app solution.”

Other features include access to vehicle service history, recall notifications, service reminders, car care tips, and remote operation of locks, climate control, lights and horn.

SERVICE KING UNVEILS 70,000-SQUARE-FOOT CALIFORNIA LOCATION

Service King Collision Repair Centers announced the opening of its 70,000-square-foot repair center in Milpitas, Calif.

“This is certainly an extremely proud moment for the entire Service King family,” said Wesley McAlester, Service King market vice president. “Service King of Milpitas is a true symbol of our drive to redefine the expectations of collision repair. We look forward to serving Northern California residents and our local business partners with superior service rooted in Service King’s promise of exceptional quality and personal care.”

The Milpitas location is Service King’s 301st, with Service King’s market footprint now spanning 23 states. The new facility has the capacity to repair 600 vehicles per month and includes a contemporary customer waiting area complete with water features.

Service King also announced the acquisition of Charlie Hinds Paint and Body in Houston, and the opening of another new repair shop in Bentonville, Ark. 70 ABRA SHOPS BECOME FIRST TO EARN NSF CERTIFICATION

NSF International has certified 70 ABRA Auto Body & Glass Repair Centers through the NSF Collision Repair Shop Certification program.

“We are pleased to have 70 of our repair centers now certified by NSF International,” Scott Krohn, ABRA executive vice president of operations, said. “This independent certification is confirmation of our ongoing commitment to providing superior quality repairs and exceptional customer service. We continue to work hard toward a goal of earning NSF certification for every one of our ABRA repair center locations.”

To earn NSF certification, ABRA shops had to perform high-quality and consistent repairs, use and maintain

proper equipment for the job, have qualified and trained personnel, use quality parts for repairs, respond promptly to complaints and consumer feedback, utilize modern computer estimation systems, and provide excellent customer service.

ABRA is the first company to earn NSF collision repair shop certification and plans to certify all its repair centers.

FIX AUTO ACQUIRES SIX FRANCHISES

Fix Auto USA announced the addition of six new franchise locations.

The six new franchises expand Fix Auto’s reach in Chicago; Elko, Nev.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Monterey, Calif.; San Diego; and Seattle.

“These respected, established operators have decided to align with other like-minded operators to continue competing in a consolidating and competitive marketplace while maintaining their independent ownership,” Paul Gange, Fix Auto president and COO, said. “The Fix Auto Brand continues to gain traction because we extend invitations only to operators who exhibit market-leading performance and are driven, passionate, and committed to their businesses. We welcome them all to the Fix Auto Family.”

ARRESTS MADE FOR SUSPICION OF VEHICLE HACKING

Two suspects have been arrested for suspicion of the theft and illegal export of over 100 vehicles using laptops, according to a report by USA Today.

Investigators reported that the two suspects specifically targeted Jeep and Dodge vehicles in the Houston area by using laptops to tap into the vehicles and start them without a key, according to the report.

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SNAP SHOP

1

Mike’s Auto Body Napa Napa, Calif.

OWNER Mike Rose STAFF 10 SIZE 9,200 square feet AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT 90 ANNUAL REVENUE: $2.2 million SHOP

LOCATION

Mike’s Auto Body has been in business for 44 years and operates 15 locations. Its 12th location in Napa, Calif., recently reopened after the construction of a separate building for its office space and customer lobby.

The 2,000-square-foot addition, built after buying the lot next to the production facility, boasts an attractive Napa motif with a flat roof and tin overhangs. The addition allows customers to more easily access the front entrance and parking.

The new building has five offices and a small conference room in addition to the customer lobby.

Stained cement flooring and dark wood give the interior a distinctive atmosphere.

After construction, Mike’s Auto Body was able to streamline the production flow. The office space which use to occupy part of the shop was eliminated and added to production, which is now 7,200 square feet. The shop implemented a straight line production flow, with bodywork, paint and detail lined up, unlike before. The Napa location was able to add additional lifts and body technicians, as well.

» To see other shop spaces or to submit your own, go to fenderbender.com/snapshop CLICK HERE

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OCTOBER 2016

COURTESY MIKE’S AUTO BODY NAPA

The shop’s two buildings sit between two separate streets running parallel to one another, giving each structure its own entrance on its own street. This allows the shop to more easily flow cars between the shop and front office without leaving the production space. “We can actually flow between the streets now between our office and our production space,” says Dane Dearlove, marketing department coordinator for Mike’s Auto Body.

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OCTOBER 2016

DID YOU KNOW

QUICK FIX

ABRA received 425 applicants to fill the 10 available spots in its initial class for its Career Development Academy.

NEWS // IDEAS // PEOPLE // TRENDS IN BRIEF

ANALYSIS

A Pipeline for Talent ABRA welcomed its first group of students to its newly opened Career Development Academy

BY TESS COLLINS

COURTESY ABRA

Ask any collision repairer to name one of

the biggest issues facing the industry today and chances are he or she will mention the technician shortage. The average age of technicians is increasing, and with many of these workers nearing retirement, shops have been struggling to find ways to attract new talent.

Recently, one of the largest MSOs in the country found a way to solve this problem and is attracting new recruits in record numbers.

For the past three years, ABRA Auto Body & Glass has been working on targeting talent to address the shortage of skilled laborers in the collision repair industry. Its latest initiative, ABRA’s Career Development Academy in Eagan, Minn., is its most aggressive yet. The program is an accelerated training program that guarantees employment at an ABRA shop upon graduation. For the initial class of 10 students, David Kuhl, ABRA’s chief people officer, was hoping for an applicant pool of between 50 and 75 to choose from.

In all, 425 were submitted.

Some argue that having 425 applicants for 10 spots could indicate that the talent shortage is not as dire as many in the industry tend to believe. How was ABRA able to do it?

Eliminate Barriers Mike Willis, director of training and development for ABRA, explains that the program was created to facilitate students that are passionate about the industry but may have had to drop out because of the cost of attending a technical school or due to a lack of resources. When doing research and talking to potential students, Claire Giancola-Belmares, ABRA’s talent outreach director, discovered that the cost of tuition and materials was one of the leading causes for people either not pursuing or dropping out of a career in the collision repair industry. Armed with this knowledge, ABRA made it its mission to create a program that would eliminate these obstacles for students.

Along with free tuition, all of the materials the students require are provided. When the students graduate, they are given a toolkit valued around $3,000. Room and board is provided for out-of-town students.

Dan Libby, 35, was a part of ABRA’s first class of students. Libby is from the Chicago area and ABRA put him up in a nearby hotel, which meant he didn’t have to worry about living expenses.

ABRA even provides the students with lunch every day.

Financial Security For many potential technicians, Kuhl explains that taking time off to go back to school and missing out on earning a living wage is the reason many of the students hadn’t already pursued a career in the collision repair industry. ABRA developed its program with this in mind.

The academy is a five-week course that combines classroom and shop experience. The students attend Monday through Friday, 8 a.m to 4:30 OCTOBER 2016

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20 F E N D E R B E N D E R . C O M / / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6

A PIPELINE FOR TALENT

CONTINUED

p.m., and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. Willis says that the program was designed to get the students into the shop and producing as quickly as possible. Students attend the academy tuition free and are paid $11 per hour while attending. After graduation, the students are guaranteed a job at an ABRA shop where they receive a pay increase and work as apprentices until the shop signs off on them as a C-level technicians, which Willis says usually takes around two years.

A Springboard Willis explains that the academy differs from traditional apprenticeships due to the speed of the program and how it’s set up. The five-week slate of courses is packed with information, but not enough to create technicians that are ready to work on their own. Having a program set up this way provides an option for people who need to be able to earn a living right away. It is meant to be a springboard to get students into a shop and be productive, but also help them identify what role they see themselves in. Although the majority of the students will choose to go the traditional route of the academy and become body techs, Kuhl says that ABRA identifies candidates for positions like estimators and promotes from within to the leadership team all of the time. The academy has been set up to identify and funnel those students who would be a good fit.

Mass Appeal ABRA is consciously trying to get applicants from different backgrounds to create diversity. The academy has admitted students that have attended technical school, students that have grown up around cars and a few that have no experience at all. Kuhl says the next class of students has two women in it. So what’s the one quality that these students have in common, the one thing that ABRA looks for? Passion, says Willis.

Libby and Keeren Nicholls, 33, are two of the 10 students admitted to the program’s first class. The two come from

different backgrounds and have different experience levels, but both say they are thrilled to have found an opportunity like this.

Nicholls was born in England and attended art school for one year after graduating from high school. After attending school, he moved to the U.S. and began working in the automotive industry. Nicholls heard about the

program through a friend at his church.

Libby is a father of four with a fifth on the way, and was looking for a better life for his family. When he heard about the academy, Libby knew it was what he had been looking for.

“The opportunity sets it apart,” Libby says. “Everyone is so good about taking care of our needs. I can’t stress enough what they’ve done for me and my family.”

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9/2/2016 8:13:25 AM

QUICK FIX

NUMBERS

Does Supplement Ratio Affect Touch Time? <5%

45%

6–10%

47%

11–15%

58%

16–20%

30%

21–25%

30%

25% OR <

37%

# OF SHOPS WITH AVERAGE TOUCH TIME OF 4-5 HOURS

AVERAGE SUPPLEMENT RATIO

Stopping for supplements is one of the most common deterrents to efficiency in the collision repair process and can have an effect on a number of critical key performance indicators (KPIs); one of those being touch time. In FenderBender’s 2016 KPI Survey, 46 percent of shops reported having a touch time of 4–5 hours per day.

But, according to the survey, as supplement frequency increased, the less likely it was for a shop to achieve that 4–5 hour benchmark.

You can support local collision schools programs… …join us in donating scrap parts to local collision school programs!

The Collision Repair Education Foundation, a national 501c3 charity, is seeking spare parts (fenders, bumper covers, hoods, etc) for donation to local high school and college collision school programs. These parts allow students to practice collision repair and make them more productive and efficient entry-level employees upon graduation. Help us remove the financial barriers that these instructors face with limited program budgets by removing your spare parts from dumpsters and into the hands of your local school(s).

Email info@ed-foundation.org if you have spare parts available for donation to a local school.

Parts donated to schools through the Collision Repair Education Foundation are tax-deductible.

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OCTOBER 2016

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ADVERTISEMENT

THE MITCHELL 2016 AMERICAN ROAD SHOW HEADS TO

INDIANA & MICHIGAN

Chase Miller remembers first coming to his father’s shop, Miller’s Body & Chassis in Waynetown, Ind., when he was 9 years old. Today, he’s the manager, and as his father, Mike, looks ahead to retirement from the 47-year-old business, Miller is focused on becoming a great businessman.

Even though Miller is still working in the back, he’s started paying more attention to new software and technology, including new products from Mitchell.

According to Miller, one of the biggest obstacles facing the industry today is the rapid pace that new technology keeps coming out.

“It’s moving at such a fast rate that you almost can’t grasp technology quick enough,” Miller says.

“Every year, more products come out. It’s essential to find a way to utilize them.”

The five-employee shop has used Mitchell products since before Miller even started working at the shop 10 years ago, so finding Mitchell as a partner wasn’t an issue.

“My dad used to use the Mitchell Manuals and we’ve always been happy with the company,” Miller says.

The shop, which produces 5-8 repair orders per week, now uses Mitchell eClaim Manager, Mitchell Estimating and Mitchell RepairCenter.

“By using Mitchell, I’ve learned the importance of time tracking. I understand how valuable our time is,” Miller explains. “Paying for our labor is our biggest expense and also our biggest income. If you can use software to educate employees on how to become more efficient, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

One of Miller’s favorite features of RepairCenter is that it can be used to show employees concrete examples of what is going on in the shop to help them better understand where there is waste or inefficiencies.

“Our production times have increased, profit margins have increased—across the board it has improved,” Miller says. “I use Mitchell’s products to keep things in front of my staff’s face. If they don’t know, if you can’t present them with evidence, they won’t know why they’re being rewarded or reprimanded. People need an explanation.

They need to see it.”

The Mitchell Road Show then headed to Michigan the following day, making a stop at another long-tenured Midwest shop—the original, Clarkston location of Clarkston Auto Body Inc. The Clarkston facility, founded in 1976 by Paul Verhey, is one of two for the company in Michigan. The other, Clarkston Auto Body II, is in Waterford. When Verhey retired in 1990, his son, Dale, moved into ownership along with his wife Carol. Today, the Clarkston location has 10 employees and manages 25-30 ROs per week.

Similar to what Miller sees in Indiana, Clarkston general manager Brian Perkins also sees many challenges in keeping up with technology, but he understands how useful and important it is to remain up-to-date, including becoming certified through various OEMs. The shop had once struggled with a backlog of work, so Perkins looked for scheduling software to fix it.

“That’s what led us to getting Mitchell’s RepairCenter,” he says. “We needed a better way to schedule. We had a massive overflow of work. We had been backlogged for about a year and a half. We were always weeks behind.”

He knew that something needed to be done, so he began researching different scheduling tools. After demoing products and speaking with other shops, Mitchell was chosen as the shop’s partner. The shop uses both RepairCenter and Mitchell Estimating.

“The scheduling tool in RepairCenter is what really sold us on Mitchell,” Perkins says. “The scheduling is above and beyond. We don’t have cars sitting around like we used to.”

Clarkston Auto Body mainly uses RepairCenter for the scheduling, web status and email updating.

“The software allows you to look quickly see exactly where cars are in the process,” Perkins says. “Our customer service rep says Mitchell’s software is much easier for her to manage than the old software.”

Another added benefit that Perkins saw partnering with Mitchell was the support the shop received. Before Clarkston Auto Body made the decision, Mitchell matched it up with a shop that was similar in size and used the same accounting system. Through that shop, Perkins was able to get a real idea for how well the product would work at Clarkston.

Two Midwest shop owners explain how Mitchell RepairCenter is boosting their business.

The 2016 Mitchell Road Show continued its trek across the U.S. with stops in Indiana and Michigan to hear from collision repair businesses about how Mitchell products make a difference in their shops.

TM

Visit mitchell.com/usroadshow to see all previous 2016 Road Show stops.

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OCTOBER 2016

QUICK FIX

HOW IT WORKS

SHOP REVIEWS OF COLLISION REPAIR PRODUCTS

WEBSITE: sherwin-automotive.com COST: Price varies; typically costs $5,000-$8,000 USES: Painting and refinishing 1–3 panel jobs TRAINING: A one-hour training session with a Sherwin-Williams representative

Sherwin-Williams HP Process Refinish System Increase productivity and reduce material costs with a new refinish system

COURTESY CHAMPIONS COLLISION CENTER

BY TESS COLLINS

THE SHOP: Champions Collision Center is part of a threeshop MSO that has serviced the northwest Houston area for 20 years. The 20,000-squarefoot Cutten Road location sees an average of 200 cars per month with a staff of 18.

borne or solvent—can be applied. The last step is the application of the clear coat.

Twenty minutes after the clear coat has been applied, the car can be reassembled.

The system was designed to be used on 1–3 panel repairs.

THE REVIEWER: Brandon Gary, owner of Champions Collision, got into the industry thanks to his wife, Shauna, and her father, whom Gary eventually purchased the business from after first starting out there in 1996.

THE RETURN: Gary has used the system for four years. The HP Process Refinish System appealed to him because of the speed, which would bring down both his length of rental and cycle time. And because the process eliminates the need for baking, Gary says the shop has saved a lot of money on its energy bills.

Gary’s team uses the refinish system whenever it can, particularly with any job that has a 24-hour turnaround. Thanks to the system, Gary says he’s seen three panel jobs come in and out in the same day. He says the painters at Champions Collision like the system because they’re

HOW IT WORKS: The HP Process Refinish System allows shops to do paint and repairs in 50 minutes or less. The first step in the process is to apply the HP primer, which does not need to be baked. The entire system can be painted wet-on-wet, so as soon as the primer has been applied, the base coat—either water-

able to get more work done, as the paint dries in 20 minutes and there’s no need to bake.

THE RETURN: Within the first 60 days of using the system, the shop was able to shave a full day off of its overall cycle time, lowering it from 7.5 to 6.5 days. The shop averages two to three jobs per day that can use the system, which means two to three less heat cycles per day.

“Heat is not cheap,” Gary says. “Not running the booth as often has saved us significantly each month.”

Gary adds that the system allows 12–15 extra jobs per week thanks to the time savings. Those extra jobs bring in about $2,200 per week in extra revenue.

» Interested in knowing the impact of a particular collision repair product in the shop? Send your suggestions to submissions@fenderbender.com.

CLICK HERE

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QUICK FIX

AWARDS INSIGHT

You Can Always Do More Kristie Walthall helps bring special needs students into Conner Brothers Body Shop AS TOLD TO TRAVIS BEAN

FUE VANG

As the owner of four Conner Brothers Body Shops surrounding Richmond, Va., Kevin Conner’s top priority is giving back to his community. That goodwill has led to Conner employing special needs individuals with varying disabilities through the Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center.

And Conner says Kristie Walthall has been instrumental to the collaboration.

Hired as a customer service advisor just two years ago, Walthall has worked with the university’s Worksupport program to bring special needs individuals into the shops.

She is currently training three special needs students on office procedures and setting them up for future employment.

“With everything that goes on in her area of responsibility, she makes time for those who are less fortunate,” Conner says.

“She was never tasked with this duty—she assumed it willingly. She continues to embrace new opportunities, showing her desire to be a great leader. I am blessed to have someone as dedicated as her in my ranks.”

In light of the shortage of quality employees plaguing the collision repair industry, Conner’s efforts show there are always more avenues for finding future employees. And through three simple steps, Walthall says you can mentor anyone with enough coaching and patience.

The Program For the past six years, the Virginia Commonwealth program has worked with local small businesses to provide jobs for

special needs students. The Midlothian Conner Brothers location, where Walthall works, is where Conner tests different versions of the program.

“The cool thing about the program is that they match the people with special needs to the job,” she says. “They’re all pre-screened and ready to work. It’s just up to me to help them become a selfsustaining worker.”

Because of Walthall and the rest of her team’s dedication and patience, Conner Brothers was awarded Small Employer of the Year for 2015 by the Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) for the state of Virginia, and was a runner-up for the national organization this past June.

Step 1: Set Goals The program works with businesses to set expectations and production standards trainees must meet during internships.

“Through a relationship with the university, we have folks who help support certain special staff with learning their duties,” Conner says. “Kristie helps by identifying duties they can perform and creating the job description for them.”

At Conner Brothers, interns must answer phone calls, ask certain questions about the vehicle, QC a certain number of cars per week, and understand the shop network’s lean processes model.

“I think that helps both them and me to have some goals and things to work toward,” Walthall says.

Step 2: Be Passionate After the university sets students up at

the shop, Walthall takes over, training them on day-to-day duties and coaching them to success. And it’s Walthall’s enthusiasm for her work, Conner says, that motivates the students.

“If we have a challenge in a particular area, she is quick to help address it,” Conner says. “It’s interesting to see her work with these individuals. Many times you can hear her say how much she enjoys—to use her term, ‘loves’—a particular person. I can see the joy on her face when she sees one of the folks succeed in their job duties.”

Step 3: Be Patient Above all else, Walthall says to remember that everybody learns and excels at different rates.

“The most important thing to remember is to be patient,” she says. “Before you can really teach anything, you need to understand how people work. From my background as a teacher in early childhood education, I know it’s all about adaptability. Everyone learns things differently, and it’s just about recognizing that and then reacting.”

“I knew nothing about cars when I started here, and it’s taken me about two years to fully understand the process,” she adds. “All you can do is help them get really good at a few things and then they’ll become more versatile over time. For me, it’s now about passing on that knowledge and helping them find the passion I have.”

CLICK HERE » FenderBender Awards Insights feature past FenderBender Award nominees. To nominate an inspiring collision repair professional, or for more information, go to fenderbenderawards.com.

OCTOBER 2016

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The dirty little secret behind those “certification” programs and how they can damage your brand.

Imagine part testing programs without objective published standards that every part is required to meet—or exceed.

That’s “certification” in name only. And if that bothers you, imagine how your policyholders will greet that news.

That’s why CAPA invented automotive crash part certification with rigid standards, tests, and tolerances published for all to see. They eliminate nasty surprises and provide the certainty of true tested quality to everyone whose livelihood, whose life, or whose brand depends on a quality repair.

Because you value what people think of your brand, secret standards just don’t work. So insist on the only genuine replacement parts tested and found good enough to earn the yellow and blue CAPA Quality Seal. Because we care about what people think of us, too.

TM

If it isn’t CAPA Certified, it isn’t a genuine replacement part. capacertified.org

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OCTOBER 2016

QUICK FIX

IDEA SHOP

Profiting from Wheel Alignments According to Bob Noaker, president of Noaker’s Auto Body in Duncannon, Pa., wheel alignments are an untapped market for collision repair shops.

It’s a service few shops offer—but one that can offer not only cycle time improvements, but also a separate revenue stream. Noaker’s shop, which works on 125 cars per month and does roughly $5 million in annual sales, has been performing alignments for roughly eight years. In recent years, the shop has put a greater focus on selling alignments to non-collision customers and now performs roughly 2–3 non-collision-related alignments per day. Noaker outlines how he has made wheel alignments a revenue stream in his shop.

AS TOLD TO ANNA ZECK

We used to sublet out wheel alignments, but the problem we ran into was that we simply didn’t trust that there was someone out there to perform it up to our standards— especially for a vehicle that had been in a collision. Typically, we would need to do an alignment at the end of the job because most of the vehicles that needed alignments weren’t drivable. When the vehicle was done, we would outsource it and just hope that nothing would get messed up or need to be replaced. That’s really why we started doing them ourselves. It’s not so much the money you can make on it, it’s time you don’t have to spend taking the vehicle somewhere else.

THINKSTOCK

Another benefit is that there are very few places in our area that can do wheel alignments, particularly when they’re involved in a collision. There are only two dealerships that offer alignments and while there are some mechanical shops around, they don’t really do alignments. The other aspect is that this is not a hard upsell. Usually around a quarter of cars need an alignment and most customers understand that they’re going to wear the tires out a whole lot quicker if they’re out of alignment, so most will do it.

As soon as the car comes in, if we know it needs an alignment or we’ve sold it as customer-pay work, we perform the alignment right away. We get it up on the alignment machine and we just take care of it because then the rest of the repair should go without a hitch. If it has suspension damage, where something is bent or torn off, we try to get those parts on the car right away and as soon as we have enough on the suspension, we’ll perform the alignment.

The reason we do that is just in case there are any additional parts it may need that we don’t know about yet. Sometimes, you’ll

get three or four small bent pieces that you may not physically be able to see. If you waited until the end and then found those, you could extend the repair job out another three or four days.

The other thing is that it helps with insurance companies. Often, if you can’t measure it out or don’t see physical damage, insurers don’t want to replace a part; they’d rather do an alignment, prove that there’s something bent and then replace it. That’s fine by me because we make another $80 every time they want us to do that, but it’s much more efficient to discover that up front.

We have a full-time mechanic on staff who does half off-the-street work and half auto body–related work. The scheduling can get tricky but we have two separate schedules: the auto body side and the mechanical side.

If we know a job is coming in, we’ll just pencil that in on the mechanical side. The nice thing is that because alignments aren’t a lengthy service, they are nice filler work and easy to slip in throughout the day.

As far as pricing, we charge what the market will bear and typically stay in line with the market. A lot of insurance companies will dictate what you’re allowed to charge, but ironically enough, some pay us better than what we would charge off the street. Currently, we charge $80.95 for a four-wheel alignment

and $64.95 for a two-wheel. Typically, barring an exception, the margins are quite good. It takes on average 10–15 minutes.

The reason we’re able to maintain such good margins is because we have an excellent alignment machine. We recently purchased a new Hunter machine that makes it quicker and easier to check for alignments.

Instead of taking 10 minutes to find if a car needs something, it’s more like 2 or 3 minutes. We can check more cars going through—we now check every single car—and try to upsell alignments.

The way that we’ve been marketing wheel alignments is online. We recently switched website providers to one that focuses on automotive shops and has a lot of experience with mechanical shops. Our collision services sort of are what they are, so we have been putting more emphasis on our mechanical services online. We have been doing pay-perclick campaigns, rebuilding our website so that it’s search engine optimized and adding tabs and pages to the website highlighting our mechanical services. So far, it has made a huge difference: We’ve picked up 40 percent more mechanical work from those efforts alone.

» Give us your ideas about wheel alignments by visiting fenderbender.com/ideashop.

CLICK HERE

OCTOBER 2016

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OCTOBER 2016

THE BIG IDEA

KEVIN RAINS

MSOs: Big Threat or Overlooked Opportunity?

Opportunities exist for independents willing to adapt in a consolidating industry

THINKSTOCK

It happened again two weeks ago: A

large MSO—one of the “Big 4” and the second national MSO to enter our market—came to town; what many shops dread the most. However, whenever there is a big challenge like this, there is also opportunity. I’ll tell you about a big one I’m considering at the end of this column.

There’s a rather well-worn tale among entrepreneurs about two shoe salesmen from competing companies going to a village to sell shoes. When they arrive, they both look around and realize that no one in the village of several thousand people wears shoes. So, they each call back to their headquarters.

The first salesmen says, “This trip has been a complete waste of time!

No one here wears shoes! There is absolutely no market for shoes here!”

The second salesman calls home and excitedly tells his boss, “You won’t believe this but no one here has any shoes! This is a completely brand new, untapped market!”

The moral of the story is about seeing opportunity where others see none. This applies in our industry right now. What many people see with the pace of consolidation is nothing but negatives. But are there opportunities hidden in plain view that might be worth considering?

First of all, one thing I have observed on both occasions national MSOs have entered my market is that talent starts to move around.

Many of the employees in shops that

have recently been acquired are leery of the new corporate structure, and the culture of the shop starts to change. New rules are put in place, they no longer work for the people that hired them, and they may see their shop as a “sellout.”

All of this causes them to start looking elsewhere. Our family shops in Cincinnati have already picked up two great techs that wanted out immediately after the sale of their shops to a consolidator was announced.

The second opportunity is to market your business’s local ties.

MSOs cannot make claims that only apply to independents. Things like “locally owned” or “family owned and operated” tap into an ideal OCTOBER 2016

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MSOs

CONTINUED

of American business that is both nostalgic and true. I’ve long been a proponent of shops telling and retelling their “founding myth”— that special story of not only how they got into this industry, but also why they got into it in the first place. It’s important to tell this story in writing on your website, in a video that you can attach to your email signature, and in any networking settings where people ask, “So, what do you do for a living?”

Lastly, there is opportunity for some shops—especially smaller, local MSOs—to sell as an exit plan. I know there are some that will consider this equivalent to making a deal with the devil. There are varying perspectives on MSOs among owners, vendors and consultants in our industry. However, as one shop owner who recently sold his shops said, “I wasn’t planning to sell and saw myself as an owner for

many years to come, but what you will discover is that everything is for sale.”

In other words, they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. All I can say to that is, “Congratulations!” He made a deal that was great for him and his family and he found a way to profitably exit his business.

In my city, Cincinnati, a national MSO came to town and bought 10 shops all at once. The moment I found out about the purchase, I had a decision to make: Was this a threat or an opportunity? In the complexity of human life, it certainly has elements of both. But the one I focus on and what I do about it is my choice. The 10 shops that sold were part of the CARSTAR network.

That meant that CARSTAR would be looking for new partners in my market and I had an opportunity to step up to that plate. What initially drew me to CARSTAR was that I could continue to own my business but could leverage

national buying power with our vendors, draft off their insurance relationships and learn from their operating expertise and benchmarking of nearly 500 shops.

I’m drawn to their model as a hybrid of local ownership with a national perspective and leverage.

We have decided to go down that path and hopefully by the time you read this, we will be fully on board with CARSTAR. If not, something went very wrong. Either way, I’ll update you in next month’s column.

If you can’t wait to find out, reach out to me at the contact information below and I’ll be happy to give you an update and tell you about my experience with CARSTAR. Kevin Rains is the owner of Center City Collision in Cincinnati and Precision Frame & Body in West Chester, Ohio. He is also an industry consultant and founder of marketing website Body Shop 2.0. He can be reached at kevinrains@gmail.com. For an archive of his columns, go to fenderbender.com/rains.

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ON THE BUSINESS

Start with the Right Question To get the answers you need, you have to

ask the correct questions, right? Keep that in mind as we start off with a quick anecdote: Several years ago, I wrote one of my “wishlist columns” (like I did back in January), and at the time, I was still running my shops. Also at the time, I was tired of dealing with the same problems many of you regularly deal with: waiting too long for a re-inspection and approval of an estimate—especially when you are not on any DRPs, which my business wasn’t. I don’t need to tell you this, my friends, but those approvals can take a very long time; often, in my shops, I would have to wait upward of 10 days, maybe even longer.

I was tired of it. And I said so in my column, the premise of which was centered on a question: Why is this system broken? We needed to create a solution that would streamline the process; we needed estimating systems, insurance carriers and repairers to all be 34

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linked in one cohesive line that sped up this process. I offered my take on the solution, a cohesive, all-encompassing software system that did this.

And within days of publishing, CCC Information Services reached out to me to take a look at a system they were working on to do just that: Open Shop.

I thought it was great, both having the opportunity to offer my input and also the product itself. It was the simple solution I had in mind. Mitchell’s RC Connect is the same way, and another great system.

(If there are others out there, I apologize, as I’m unaware of them.)

Fast-forward to today, and when I deliver seminars, I often ask people if they use either product and what they think of them. Very few hands go up, and of those that do, many people say they still struggle to gain approvals in a timely manner—if at all. Often, they want to know how to better use the program.

They’re asking the wrong question

here, though. Instead, the question should be: How can we get quicker approval times on our estimates?

Well, for that question, there’s a simple, two-part answer: 1. Approach the estimate—and its line notes—with an accountant-like mentality of detail and organization.

I learned a lesson from a close friend of mine at Axalta Coating Systems named Irvin Clark. Irvin taught me this: “No doesn’t mean no. No simply means that I don’t have enough information to say, ‘Yes.’” This applies directly to how you approach estimates. It’s our jobs to give that information. And we need to give it in a meticulous, organized way.

So, line notes become one of the most critical aspects in all of this. They are there, on the estimate, for whoever is reading it to fully understand what and why you did what you did in repairing the vehicle. They need to be as detailed as possible. For example, if you’re working

THINKSTOCK

The solutions to shop struggles—estimate approvals being a large one—are right in front of us

MIKE ANDERSON

on a core support for a front-end hit, and a poorly written line note might include “R&I Cal Cover.” Now, the adjuster might wonder why a cal cover was removed and installed when there wasn’t any damage to it. Well, if you’d written the line notes well, it would say, “R&I Cal Cover in order to replace hood hinges that were damaged.” Now, it makes sense, right? You can’t argue with that.

The bottom line is that you have to look at it like an accountant sending in an IRS tax audit. Every detail needs to be accounted for, and everything needs to be as organized as possible in order for it to go well.

2. Take better photos. It’s that simple.

I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time at insurance company offices, and I’ve seen a lot of the estimates submitted to them. To be quite candid, we often really suck at taking good photos. Many of them are horrible.

Take better photos. Make sure they’re clear. If you have a hard time identifying the damage in them, that should be a clear sign that they aren’t going to help an adjuster speed up your approval. (If you want some specific tips on how to do it, here’s a great video: fenderbender.com/ betterphotos.)

Then, when you upload the photos, make sure they’re clearly labeled to the corresponding line number. Make sure they’re uploaded in the correct spots.

Include photos of repair information when necessary, and include photos of various measurements and printouts.

Bottom line: Organized information is the key to gaining quick approvals, regardless of the software systems in place. Now, if you throw in Open Shop or RC Connect, it’ll be that much more effective. I’ve seen some shops wait as long as three weeks for an approval on a reinspection, and that’s not because the software in place; it’s the lack of good line notes, photos and organization. Shops that do it well? I see them regularly get approval within 36 hours.

So, the problem isn’t a failing program. Rather, it’s a struggling

process. We asked the wrong question.

Look back at that first line of this column. I want all of you to keep that in mind. In all my years, one thing I’ve learned unequivocally is that nothing is solved by griping and complaining.

It’s easy to point to a problem; it’s much harder to get to a solution. But we can get there by asking the right questions, by starting a dialogue that

brings others into the fold. We get there together. Let’s ask more questions, and let’s find more answers.

Mike Anderson, the former owner of Wagonwork Collision Centers in Alexandria, Va., operates CollisionAdvice.com, a training and consulting firm that assists shop operators nationwide. He is also a facilitator for Axalta Coating Systems’ 20 Groups in the U.S. and Canada, and is an Accredited Automotive Manager. Reach Anderson at mike@collisionadvice.com.

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OCTOBER 2016

A NO-NONSENSE GUIDE TO MAXIMIZING MARGINS AND SETTING YOUR BUSINESS UP FOR SUSTAINED SUCCESS

BY BRYCE E VANS

OCTOBER 2016

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Profit is not a dirty word.

John Niechwiadowicz repeats this phrase a number of times over the course of the conversation, each time with a little extra emphasis. Hearing those words is your starting point. It’s a mantra of sorts.

Sure, the vast majority of business owners claim to believe it, he says, but that’s hard to tell from the way they talk.

“It’s almost taboo to discuss how profitable you are or your goals for profitability,” says Niechwiadowicz, owner of industry consulting firm QLC Inc. “Whether you’re talking to other [shop operators] or to employees or whoever, people are afraid to talk about profit.

“It can’t be a dirty word to you, though. Maximizing your profitability needs to be at the core of what you do, because it allows you to accomplish all your other goals in business. This should be obvious, but it’s absolutely critical to be profitable.”

So, here’s the question: How does a shop maximize its profitability?

This is Niechwiadowicz’s specialty; it’s what he’s traveled across the country to present on and it’s one of the main focal points in his work with repair businesses nationwide. His message is clear: Whether you’re already a high-performing shop looking to reach its potential or you’re still trying to eke your way into the black, the path to profitability isn’t about business overhaul and widespread changes to overcome obstacles hindering your shop’s ability to thrive; rather, Niechwiadowicz says profitability comes from training yourself—and your business—to adhere to simple, practical strategies that keep those obstacles at bay. Profitability comes from dedication to a process, Niechwiadowicz says.

Becoming profitable is not an easy task, as the two shop operators profiled in this story can attest. But it starts with an admission: No, profit isn’t a dirty word; it’s the summation of the blood, sweat and tears you put into your business.

Profit is what allows you to reinvest in your company, in your team, in yourself as an operator. And Niechwiadowicz says to start training now.

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PHASE 1: THE FOUNDATION

He had spreadsheets and documents, numbers and statistics. He had proof.

And Tom Bemiller, just 28 at the time, needed all of it.

“I told everyone, ‘Look: This is where we are; this is our reality,’” Bemiller says, remembering a staff meeting from nearly six years ago, one of his first meetings as the new owner of Dave’s Auto Body in Zieglerville, Pa. “We were going to make some JOHN NIECHWIADOWICZ changes, and

I needed everyone to understand exactly why.”

With 5,000 square feet of shop space and seven employees, the business had done less than $1 million in sales in 2012. It operated in the red—six figures in the red that year, although Bemiller says records weren’t kept well enough at the time to give an exact number.

But, spreadsheets in hand, Bemiller had a plan, which is why he bought the shop in the first place. Within one year, the shop added more than $300,000 in revenue (topping $1.3 million in 2013) and cutting roughly $100,000 in expenses. It was profitable (just barely), and has been increasingly so ever since.

In 2016, Bemiller’s Aureus Group—a three-shop network, each operating under a different name [1] —will gross roughly $5 million. He’s expecting a large jump in 2017, when his third facility, which opened in the spring of 2016, is fully staffed and operational.

Let’s back up a bit, though. How did Bemiller turn around his first facility, now called Aureus Auto Body, so quickly? Well, it comes down to what Niechwiadowicz says are the three biggest hindrances of profit in body shops: awareness, communication and comfort level.

CREATING AWARENESS When Bemiller took over his first shop in December 2012, he wasn’t quite as green as his age may suggest. By then, he had a college degree, a master’s in business administration and had spent more than five years as an owner-in-training of sorts at another local shop, one that he first started working at in high school.

[1] WHAT’S IN A NAME? When Tom Bemiller first took over Dave’s Auto Body, he wasted little time in changing its name to Aureus Auto Body, a reference to a gold coin in ancient Rome. But he quickly realized that was a mistake.

“We got feedback that people in the area didn’t like the name change and that they thought everyone on staff must’ve changed,” he says, noting that he kept all seven employees at the time and still has five of them on staff today. “We lost some customers and jobs because of it. When we opened the second and third locations, we didn’t make that mistake again.”

Bemiller’s marketing and branding efforts were too far along to go back on the initial name change, but his other two facilities operate under the names Mercer Auto Body (Kennett Square, Pa.) and Ed’s Auto Body (Brookhaven, Pa.).

“After college, I went back there and I really just saw the opportunity in this industry to run a shop like a true business and really thrive,” he says. “It obviously turned out to be a much more difficult task than I pictured at the time, but that’s what I wanted to do.”

At the core of every MBA program is a precise focus on financial management, and that’s where Bemiller started with his first shop. Those spreadsheets he took to those early meetings weren’t just numbers on a page. They were the vital signs of the business, each metric signifying the shop’s health and viability for the future.

“You hear it all over, but it can’t be stressed enough: You have to know your numbers, and you have to know what to do with them,” he says.

A firm understanding of key performance indicators (KPIs), Niechwiadowicz says, is the first step to gaining a true awareness of your business [2] . Without that, profitability is just luck, he says. With it, profitability can come from a purposeful process.

[2] THE KPI MASTER LIST As an industry consultant and 20 Group facilitator, John Niechwiadowicz often works with shops on the performance metrics that lead a shop to sustained profitability and success. Here’s Niechwiadowicz’s breakdown of the most critical KPIs for every business and their corresponding benchmarks: Financial KPIs • Total Sales: No benchmark (varies depending on size/scale) • Total Gross Profit Percentage: 42% (minimum); 45% or higher (top performers) • Overhead Expenses as a Percentage of Sales: 35% (minimum); 28–32% (top performers) • Marketing as a Percentage of Sales: 2–3% (minimum); 4% or higher (top performers) • Operating Income as a Percentage of Sales: 5–8% (minimum); 15–25% (top performers) • Past-Due Accounts Receivable as a Percentage of Sales: 3–5% (minimum and top performers)

OPEN COMMUNICATION Let’s circle back to Bemiller’s initial staff meeting one more time, because

Sales and Estimating KPIs • Average Severity: $2,500–$2,699 (minimum); $2,700 or higher (top performers)* • Paint Hours per RO: 8–9 hours (minimum); 10 or more (top performers) • Job Costing for Each RO: 42% (minimum); 45% or higher (top performers) *REFLECTS SHOP WITH A “STANDARD MIX” OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN VEHICLES

Operational KPIs • Touch Time: 2–2.2 hours per day (minimum); 5 or more hours per day (top performers) • Technician productivity: 125–150% (minimum); approaching 200% (top performers) • Customer Satisfaction: All shops should be near 100%

THE AUREUS GROUP —

LOCATION:

SILVER ORCHID PHOTOGRAPHY

THREE LOCATIONS IN PENNSYLVANIA OIWNER:

TOM BEMILLER SIZE:

5,000–9,000 SQUARE FEET STAFF:

25 Started from the Bottom Tom Bemiller was able to turn revive his business by taking a hard look at the numbers and keeping an open line of communication with his team.

AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT:

170 ANNUAL REVENUE:

$4.7 MILLION OCTOBER 2016

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PROFITABILITY BOOTCAMP

who were going to fix things. All of them were focused on creating a profitable, thriving business.

CREATE COMFORT IN THE PROCESS

So, now you know your KPIs. Your employees know, too, and there is an overall understanding of the business’s current state. There’s a comfort level that comes from that, Niechwiadowicz says, and that comfort level provides a foundation for future decisions and changes to the shop’s processes, systems and structure. Decisions become easier when everyone is open, comfortable and understands the reasoning. And from that building block, a business has the opportunity to maximize its profitability.

PHASE 2: PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

By his own admission, Bob Waldron likes to use “corny sayings.” He explains this through his cell phone while driving down a Massachusetts freeway.

“Everything today is about people,” he then says, right on cue.

This is one of his sayings, and for his part, Waldron does have people— about 55 of them, actually, spread across his four Boston-area CARSTAR facilities. His people, he says, are his greatest asset. That’s why he’s on the freeway, in between two of his locations, rather than stuck behind a service counter or fumbling through financials in a back office. He can take his commute nice and slow, as he knows his business is plowing forward at full speed, on a $9 million-plus pace for 2016 with each facility generating a double-digit net profit.

“I’ve been at this a long time—35 years—and it’s a lot of hard work; nothing comes easy,” he explains (through the use of another one of his sayings, of course). “But there are ways to make it easier on yourself, and your team. There are ways to make it easier on your business to produce.”

Name Game Be careful of changing your business’s name—while Tom Bemiller built a brand and marketing plan around Dave’s Auto Body’s new name, Aureus Auto Body, it led some loyal customers to believe the shop had a new staff

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SILVER ORCHID PHOTOGRAPHY

his shop’s entire turnaround—or at least the incredible speed of it—might’ve just come down to one sentence he uttered that day.

“The message to employees was, ‘I will probably do things a lot differently than they had done, but, that said, there are things you are doing that I can learn from and that can make us better. We need to work together to find solutions,’” he says.

“I don’t believe in just telling people what to do,” he adds. “I don’t just allow them to make decisions, but I also expect them to.”

It might sound cliché, Bemiller says, but bringing his staff in on decisions and opening up those lines of free communication (not to mention sharing all of the shop’s KPIs), created a buy-in with his team. It was all of them, together,

Scaling Successfully Bob Waldron’s successful four-shop network comes down to a philosophy that prioritizes people, systems and KPIs.

It comes down to three things, Waldron says, and he has a saying for each. The first, we covered already in Phase 1: “You can’t manage it unless you measure it,” which addresses the need for a strict focus on KPIs. Then, there’s the next two:

PETER WORREST

“FOCUS ON SYSTEMS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE FOLLOWS.”

In principle, there are two ways to improve profitability. One is to cut costs [3] ; the other is to increase revenue [4] .

Do one—or both—and your business takes in more money. And it really can be as simple as that, Waldron says, if you allow it to be; or, rather, if you implement systems in your business that allow it to be.

Waldron has been obsessed with a systemized approach to operations since

[3] A CASE STUDY IN CUTTING COSTS: TRIMMING THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT When Tom Bemiller took over Dave’s Auto Body, he quickly looked at ways to trim expenses.

“In most shops, especially ones that are operating at a loss, there is usually a lot of ‘low-hanging fruit,’ as they say,” he explains. “We had some obvious areas to cut back on spending.”

First, there was a redundancy in a front office staff position of which he would fill the role.

Then there were more minor aspects, such as a ridiculous abundance of office supplies.

“I think we had about 10 backup ink cartridges for each computer in the shop,” he says.

“Then there were some contracts that we were able to renegotiate with vendors, like for our compressed gas cylinders. We were renting them month-by-month and paying a very large amount. I switched it to a yearly lease, and we started paying a fifth of the amount.”

He also cleared out old inventory in the shop and sold old, unused equipment. In all, Bemiller quickly shaved $100,000 off the shop’s annual operating costs.

“You need to look for every opportunity to cut an expense that is unneeded,” he says.

“Never cut anything that would hinder your ability to produce, but keep an eye out for excess items and things like that.”

[4] A CASE STUDY IN INCREASING REVENUE: FOCUS ON THE PROCESS With Dave’s Auto Body operating at a heavy loss when he took over, Tom Bemiller looked for simple ways to increase revenue. After reaching out to local insurance representatives and making connections that led to a quick influx in insurance work, Bemiller focused on simple efficiency gains to push more work through the shop.

“We were a classic, in-onMonday-out-on-Friday shop,” he says. “And we had a lot of scheduling inefficiencies.”

Customers would wait far too long for repairs to even start, and with a backlog of work, many would simply opt for a different shop rather than wait.

Bemiller implemented three core aspects of his production model right away, foundational principles he learned from his time managing another local Pennsylvania shop: • Take work in every day. Bemiller schedules vehicle dropoffs Monday through Friday, based on the amount of hours his team can complete in a day. (Today, the number varies depending on his facility.) Vehicles are not dropped off until they are ready to be worked on, which brings in his second point …

• Write complete estimates the first time. Bemiller’s rule: A complete estimate must be written the very first time his team puts its hands on a car. Supplements are an efficiency—and profitability— killer in the shop.

• Mirror-match all parts upon arrival. Too many times, Bemiller says, shops will wait until a part is ready to go on a vehicle to doublecheck that it’s correct. In Bemiller’s shops, his parts staff and estimators mirror-match each part when it is delivered to the shop. Then, if there are any issues, there is still time to get the correct part to the shop when it’s needed.

With those basic improvements, Dave’s Auto Body improved its technician efficiency by more than 25 percent (it had been in the low 90s) and gave the shop a $300,000 boost in revenue in Year 1.

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PROFITABILITY BOOTCAMP

the early days of ARMS in the 1980s. It’s how he’s always been able to maximize his rather small facilities (his original location is just 5,000 square feet).

Repeatable, efficient systems cut costs by eliminating waste—not just materials, but also excess time spent on jobs.

And, in turn, that increased efficiency improves revenue: Quicker cycle time and increased touch time [5] push more vehicles through a facility, allowing more jobs to come in.

Don’t overthink it, Waldron implores.

Find the best way to perform an action in your shop, and create a system that allows it to be repeated in that way every time.

“EVERYTHING TODAY IS ABOUT PEOPLE.”

OK, so we’ve heard this already, but it merits repeating. Nothing, Waldron says, is more important than your people. [6] “Bottom line is that you need the right people to carry out the correct systems,” he says.

It’s taken him years to cultivate his hiring strategy, but he says it was worth the effort. Today, he has a general manager at each location that he trusts to run completely autonomously. Each location is staffed with roughly 10 team members, each with Waldron’s complete trust to carry out the company’s processes.

[6] A RULE TO HIRING ‘EXTRAORDINARY’ PEOPLE Bob Waldron has a thorough hiring process for each of his four Massachusetts CARSTAR facilities. It includes an in-depth job description, a focus on year-round interviewing, and candidate screening based on personality. Really, it’s not too different than many of the topperforming shops out there. But, Waldron says there is a simple rule for identifying “extraordinary” people to bring into his business: “Always choose people who can bring something to the business that you can’t,” he says.

“If it’s a manager, they should bring something to the table that you don’t know. Any position, make sure they bring something that you didn’t have before and that will improve your business. If they don’t have that, there’s nothing extraordinary about them.”

Read more about the employee recognition program at fenderbender.com/recognition.

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PETER WORREST

[5] WHY TOUCH TIME IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CYCLE TIME Consultant John Niechwiadowicz says it’s really simple: Cycle time is too dependent on vehicle mix, job type and job time; touch time is a true reflection of how productive your team is. When looking at it from a profitability standpoint, Niechwiadowicz says to focus on improving touch time to ensure that you’re not wasting valuable labor resources in your facility.

PHASE 3: GOAL SETTING AND RE-EVALUATION

Small But Mighty Although Bob Waldron’s shops are sometimes as small as 3,500 square feet, an emphasis on processes ensures profitability.

WALDRON’S CARSTAR AUTO BODY SHOPS —

LOCATION:

FOUR LOCATIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS OWNER:

BOB WALDRON SIZE:

3,500–13,000 SQUARE FEET STAFF:

55 AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT:

300 ANNUAL REVENUE:

$9 MILLION

There’s a clear personality similarity between the most successful (see: profitable) shop operators, Niechwiadowicz says.

“To me, it seems the top performers are not the ones that sit back and say, ‘OK, we’ve made it now,’” he explains. “The most successful people you find in business are the ones who look at their success and say, ‘Gosh, there’s a real opportunity to improve here.’

“Once you start tracking performance, making tweaks and process adjustments and seeing success, momentum starts to build. Your team gets excited. They get confident. You get confidence. You need to keep striving to improve and keep that momentum going.”

It’s not a coincidence that Bemiller and Waldron both have expanded their businesses drastically over the years—all while maintaining high margins. Even with the operating losses and expenses of a brand-new facility, Bemiller says his three-shop network is on pace for an 8 percent net profit in 2016.

Waldron will open his fifth location before the start of 2017.

Proper goal-setting is critical to sustaining success [7] , Niechwiadowicz says. Profitability is the result of a cycle: evaluate, make adjustments, re-evaluate, make adjustments, re-evaluate, and

[7] HOW TO SET PROPER GOALS Goal setting is crucial to business success, but many shop operators fall short when it comes to setting proper goals for improvement. Too often, the objectives are too vague, intangible and unmeasurable. Niechwiadowicz offers his seven-step process for setting better goals that will set your shop on the path to profitability: • Gather historical data. If you feel there is an area that needs improvement in your business, the first place to look is in your management system by giving a thorough review of your KPIs. • Compare to benchmarks. Look to benchmarks like the ones laid out in this story for an indicator of whether or not your shop meets industry standards.

• Identify a specific problem.

Look for target areas where the numbers indicate a lack of performance.

• Get involvement. Bring in members of your team who have an impact on that problem area previously identified. Communicate the issues you see and gather information from them about possible reasons for the problem and solutions to fixing it.

• Set an objective. Define a realistic, tangible and incremental adjustment (or goal) for your team based on the data you have and the discussions that took place.

Set out a specific timeline for how and when this improvement will be made.

• Have regular check-ins. Don’t simply assign the project to your team and ignore it until the due date. Monitor it regularly, and schedule check-ins with those involved to keep tabs on whether the plan put in place is effective.

Make adjustments as needed.

• Final review. At the end of the specified timeline, review the results and the efforts made to achieve them. Do a full re-evaluation of the issue and see if more work is needed.

so on. Train yourself. Allow your business to succeed. Profit isn’t taboo. It’s attainable.

“There’s no silver bullet to fix everything in one shot,” Waldron says.

“It takes work, hard work, and doing things the right way. There’s nothing wrong or dirty about making a profit.

I’ve been here 35 years, and that’s why I’m still going.”

OCTOBER 2016

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A SECOND CHANCE AS TOLD TO TRAVIS BE AN PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY BEAUMONT

GALLERY COLLISION CENTER TOOK A CHANCE ON A UGANDAN REFUGEE—AND IT’S PAYING OFF IN SPADES

Taking a Chance Douglas Sebowa’s positive attitude—and pearly white smile— have provided a breath of fresh air to Gallery Collision Center’s staff.

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GALLERY COLLISION CENTER —

LOCATION:

NORWOOD, MASS. SIZE:

12,000 SQUARE FEET STAFF:

14 (5 TECHNICIANS, 3 PREPPERS, 3 ADMINISTRATIVE, 1 PAINTER, 1 DETAILER, 1 STORE LEADER) AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT:

85-110 ANNUAL REVENUE:

$3–$4 MILLION

Focus on Initiative Since joining the shop, Douglas Sebowa has shown the initiative to take on a number of tasks—including helping in paint.

TALEN T F OR LIFE — Head to fenderbender.com/sebowa to read Giarrizzo’s tips for attracting quality employees for life.

E

VEN ON THE WORST OF DAYS, when nothing seems to be going right and she’s overwhelmed, Kate Fox knows one smile will cure everything.

“He’s got these big, pearly, perfect, white teeth and you just can’t help but smile back,” she says. “He’s just a breath of fresh air.”

It’s hard to understate how important that smile has been to Gallery Collision Center, where Fox serves as administrative leader. That smile embodies the desire to learn, the reward for hard work, the power of a positive shop culture, the advantage of investing in employees and growing from within—the realization of the American Dream.

That smile belongs to Douglas Sebowa.

A refugee hailing from Uganda, Sebowa, 28, traveled to America and eventually found his way into the Boston shop, which is part of DCR Systems, a company that sets up turnkey collision repair facilities for dealerships.

Keep in mind: Sebowa had zero body repair experience prior to January 2016. When he sat down with 48

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OCTOBER 2016

store leader Tim Johnson for an interview, Sebowa— now the shop’s production support technician—had never disassembled a vehicle, applied primer, picked up a paint gun, or even pulled a dent out of a hood.

Yet, if you ask Johnson about hiring Sebowa?

“It’s the best investment we’ve made at the shop,” Johnson says. “That’s the type of thing you can’t plan for: Somebody comes in the shop and has this willingness to learn, and the other guys see that and feed off it. Those are the types of people that want to grow and earn more responsibility. To see somebody that is going out there and grabbing the bull by the horns, you don’t want to let that person pass them by.”

Michael Giarrizzo Jr., CEO of DCR Systems and the man who discovered Sebowa, couldn’t agree more. In fact, he thinks Sebowa’s story serves as a lesson for the entire collision repair industry.

“If we start thinking a little different about the way we do work, I think the door opens wide for people that don’t have industry experience or aren’t mechanically inclined,” he says, “especially when you have other experienced people to teach them in a very structured manner.”

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A SECOND CHANCE

A CRISIS In Uganda, Sebowa and his friends had a saying: “Fake it until you make it.”

He laughs about it now, but most of his life, that phrase had been pretty essential: for money, for food, for survival. Sebowa had to perform whatever work was thrown his way as a youth.

Which, for many years, included automotive repair.

“My friends and I would buy used car parts all the time. People would need us to put parts on their cars, so I would go help them with that,” he says.

“But I didn’t have a lot of experience. So I would say I could fix their cars, and then just learn from other people. I’ve always wanted to learn more and get new experiences.”

While Sebowa recalls his childhood and teenage years with fondness, as the years have passed, conflict between surrounding nations has resulted in a very different societal landscape.

More and more people have fled from violence and human rights infringements in South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo and into Uganda, whose refugee population grew from 421,000 to 513,000 over the course of 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The political unrest it has caused in his home country led Sebowa to seek refuge through the United Nations, eventually landing him in the U.S. Incessantly searching for work—as he’s always done—he called dozens of students who had attended mission trips in Uganda, and eventually connected with someone who knew Michael Giarrizzo Jr.

A VISION As the former vice president of Sterling Auto Body Centers, Giarrizzo helped grow the company to 65 stores employing 1,300 people across 10 states by implementing lean process models, focusing on driving down cycle time, and establishing team-based systems.

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Working Together The staff at Gallery Collision Center has taken Douglas Sebowa under its collective wing, showing him the ropes and ushering him into new roles.

But above all else, he says he did it by investing in employees.

“We set ourselves apart by caring about the growth of our employees,” Giarrizzo says. “We structured a career path for them to be successful.”

He kept that mentality when he formed DCR Systems in 2004. Today, at seven different collision centers, the company employs 115 individuals—half of which are homegrown.

Customer service representatives have gone on to become administrative leaders; apprentices have turned into lead structural technicians; one detailer is now a store leader.

So once Giarrizzo heard Sebowa’s story of fleeing to the U.S., the CEO then asked Sebowa about his experience.

“I told him, ‘I can do anything as long as you give me the opportunity to do it,’” Sebowa recalls.

And Giarrizzo didn’t hesitate one bit.

A SYSTEM Tony Matthews remembers the first day he met Sebowa with absolute clarity.

“He’s got this spiritual walk about him,” says Matthews, master painter for Gallery Collision Center. “He’s just very friendly and easy to talk to. He learns really quickly and wanted to learn from the get-go.”

While his shop receives training from AkzoNobel and 3M, store leader Tim Johnson says the DCR “growingfrom-within” mentality involves pairing new hires with experienced employees like Matthews, who coach and guide newbies like Sebowa through the shop’s lean processing model. So, on the first day, Sebowa was instructed to offer extra help and wash cars.

The second day? He stepped over to disassembly and started asking questions. Before Matthews and Johnson knew it, Sebowa was balancing washing, disassembling

Growing as a Team Douglas Sebowa’s determination to grow in his role has caught the attention of every employee, including administrative leader Kate Fox (immediate left), now a close friend of Sebowa’s.

A TEAM

and performing any extra help needed around the shop.

“It was immediately apparent he would do whatever it took to help the shop,” Johnson says. “He wanted to learn to paint, do assemblies, do disassemblies, perform metal work. He wanted to work his way up.”

That drive to learn and take on more and more responsibility is paying off for Sebowa, who was quickly promoted from extra help to product support technician. He provides relief in all departments, spending most of his time priming vehicles. And whenever there’s downtime, he heads into the paint booth with Matthews to work on his refinishing skills.

“The beauty of it all is that DCR fosters an environment that promotes that attitude,” Johnson says. “Because we’re an hourly shop, when time or opportunities present themselves, we can take the time to build talent at the store.

“That also brings up other people, because they feel the need to pick up their level of work to stay with it.

There’s a lot of camaraderie that comes from somebody who walks over and asks what you need help with. That type of attitude spreads like wildfire through a shop.”

Giarrizzo is heavily invested in quenching Sebowa’s desire to grow as a technician and has twice flown the green employee to DCR’s Mentor, Ohio, facility, where Sebowa has been taking classes and is working his way toward achieving ASE Master certification by 2017.

“Young people are like sponges. They learn quickly,” Giarrizzo says. “And if we don’t compensate them for their skills, somebody else is going to. Then all the sudden, we become the minor league team for somebody else. And that’s not what we want to do. We want to create career people.”

Each morning when Kate Fox arrives at the office, she flips the lights on, powers up her computer, and, of course, gets the hot chocolate ready.

“Even in 90-degree weather, he makes sure I have hot chocolate brewing,” she says of Sebowa, laughing.

“He has an unhealthy obsession with hot chocolate, really,” Johnson chimes in.

Sebowa’s quirks and good nature have not only resulted in a livelier, more fun, familial shop environment, Johnson says, but have filtered into the employees’ lives. One of the shop’s lead technicians gives Sebowa—who is now set up in a Boston apartment—a ride each morning, and Fox and her fiancé happily drive Sebowa to church each Sunday.

“He comes to breakfast or lunch with us afterward,” she says. “My fiancé actually spends a lot of time with him outside of work. They’re inseparable at this point.”

Sebowa truly enjoys brightening everyone’s day and thrives off the energy of the new shop culture. He feels a sense of loyalty to the shop, which gave him a chance when he didn’t know where to go.

“It’s almost like a family here,” Sebowa says. “At first I was very scared because I didn’t know anything. But then everyone was trying to show me how to do it right.”

“We just embraced him with open arms,” Matthews adds. “He was overwhelmed by all of the support he had.

We took him in as a family.”

For Giarrizzo, the return on investment isn’t even calculable. When you invest in work ethic and drive, anything is possible, he says.

“It’s opened all of our eyes,” Giarrizzo says. “Some people look at it and say, ‘Wow, you really helped him out and gave him an opportunity.’

And that may be so—but it’s actually worked in reverse. The payback has been immeasurable.”

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EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES AS TOLD TO TRAVIS BE AN PHOTOGR APHY BY CHRIS PALERMO

JOHN HAYDUK’S MANAGEMENT STYLE ENABLED ABERNETHY’S AUTO BODY’S ONCECAUTIOUS EMPLOYEES TO INVEST IN SHOPWIDE SUCCESS

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SHOP TALK

FOR HIS FIRST MONTH AT ABERNETHY’S AUTO BODY, JOHN HAYDUK DESCRIBED THE ENVIRONMENT AS TENSE, FOREBODING, UNEASY—ESSENTIALLY, EVERYONE WAS “WALKING ON EGGSHELLS.” “The manager would just lose it,” Hayduk says. “He would just start screaming and throwing papers and files around, having a meltdown. It was like that every week.”

As the manager- in -training at the time, Hayduk observed everything that was holding back the Avondale, Pa ., shop: a disorganized repair process; self- entitled employees; an unwillingness to negotiate with insurance companies; outrageous paint and materials spending; low efficiency and productivit y.

And, of course, the elephant in the room: the shop’s inabilit y to evolve.

“The manager had been here since 1969 and was still doing things the way he did them back then,” Hayduk says.

So when Hayduk stepped in, the 53 -year- old’s daily schedule and management st yle brought Abernethy’s into the 21st century: complete disassemblies up front; a quick lane for small repairs; eliminating employees unwilling to adapt; getting paid for all work; getting employees invested in shopwide success.

While he says the shop staff experienced “culture shock”—which resulted in staff being slashed from 19 to 11 people — employees are now making more money and have invested in the company’s continued growth. Cycle times were cut by one day, productivity doubled (from 2.8 to 5.5 booth cycles per day), efficiency rose by 40 percent, paint and materials gross profits rose by 70 percent, on-time completion rates for jobs over $1,500 rose from 35 to 100 percent, and Abernethy’s had its best sales month of all time in June.

Oh, and one extra detail: Hayduk has accomplished all this in one year.

My management style is that I don’t micromanage.

It’s the complete opposite of what everyone was used to. I give people a task, and I expect them to take ownership if something is not completed on time. If there’s a problem with the paint color, just fix it.

You don’t need me to see it. If you’re not happy with something, you’re empowered to make a decision. I just need to know if there’s a problem that affects delivery so I can update the customer. It only becomes a problem if you’re consistently missing deadlines, which is when I’ll pull 54

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OCTOBER 2016

you aside and address it.

Now I have a great team here that doesn’t need much hand holding, which is really nice.

The first thing I do each day is say “Good morning” to everybody. You have to maintain that communication with everyone. You have to be upbeat. I don’t walk in acting like a grump.

Then I’ll print out a sheet from our management system, which tracks what process the cars are in. I’ll walk out in

the body shop and make sure all the cars being worked on in the shop are where they’re supposed to be at.

Then I walk over to paint and check on what their plans are for the day. I spent a lot of time in the beginning—and still do—policing the paint department. We needed to cut down on our inventory. It was hellacious when I got here. They were ordering $25,000 in paint supplies every month, and now we’re down to $11,000.

The other issue we had was our paint

Rebuilding a Shop After taking over for a mercurial manager, John Hayduk made it a point to create a team environment where staff felt empowered.

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SHOP TALK

shop at the time would only do 2.8 cycles a day. And some painters wouldn’t budge on changing. Eventually it came to the point to where we had to part ways with long-time employees.

Our management system also gives us a projected paint date, so our painters know when they’re supposed to paint each car. Our whole thing is to paint the car that is next to be painted. If you’re ahead of the game, then you’re fine; you can paint them in any order.

But if I get a car to you that says it needs to be painted by noon today, don’t skip that car to paint another—that car goes through the booth.

Now everything that goes through that paint shop gets painted that same day, and we’ve seen a massive upswing in efficiency and throughput. They work as a team now.

I had to let my estimator go, so right now I’m writing all the estimates, which is what I spend the majority of the day doing. I had to let him go because he wasn’t being thorough enough, and being thorough is the only way to get paid by insurance companies.

I believe the estimate should tell a story. It shouldn’t just be 10 lines. My estimates might be 50, 60 lines. Most of that is included operations and little details about all the work that needs to be done. That’s to let the body tech know that I was thorough. And they need to know that, because their pay is based on efficiency. They need to know how they’re getting paid.

I’ve made it a point to review jobs with technicians. When I first got here, if they took the tail lights out on a bumper job and de-trimmed the trunk to reach a molding, they saw that as basic work that didn’t need to be charged to insurance. They were essentially performing that disassembly on the back of that car for free. You’ve just given an hour and a half of that job away. And it’s just crazy.

You have to take the time to study it.

It’s all about educating employees. They have to understand they can ask for it and say to the estimator, “Hey, I had to 56

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OCTOBER 2016

take the tail lights off, how come I don’t have this on my estimate?” Depending on how busy we get, sometimes the tech will get the car to disassembly, and I might not have seen the car. It might be an insurance estimate, and now techs will come to me and note discrepancies.

It’s really a battle of cents in this business, and you have to fight for

every cent you can get. I’ve taught my guys that you can’t accept whatever the insurance company is paying. You don’t have to be a jerk about it, but you have to stand by your position and defend your work.

At the end of the day, I’m going over our numbers. I’m checking the projected

ABERNETHY’S AUTO BODY —

LOCATION:

AVONDALE, PA. SIZE:

12,000 SQUARE FEET STAFF:

12 (4 TECHNICIANS, 2 PAINTERS, 1 PREPPER, 1 DETAILER, 1 ESTIMATOR/MANAGER, 1 CSR, 1 PARTS MANAGER, 1 OWNER) AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT:

88 ANNUAL REVENUE:

$2.5 MILLION

throughputs for the shop, our WIP, our sales for the week, for the month. I see what we have coming in and see what’s realistic target for the month.

I just hired another tech and I’m focusing on increasing our capacity. I don’t want all this work sitting in the parking lot that can’t be worked on.

When a car leaves, another should be

coming in. We don’t schedule our cars for Monday anymore. We bring the cars in Monday through Friday, so there’s always new cars coming in and cars are always cycling through the shop.

Before I leave, I’m usually doing different things depending on who’s here. Sometimes I’m writing estimates and handling

all of the parts. If my CSR isn’t here, that means I’m answering the phone.

The big thing is just being available for the guys in the shop when they have questions. It makes a huge difference when you have a big team working together, as opposed to individuals pulling against each other. It just makes things so much easier.

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Darren Huggins is a proponent of “keeping it simple.” Everything in your business, he says, comes down to the people—and the leaders they follow.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

“Your team is going to respond to your actions,” says Huggins, director of Berkshire Hathaway Automotive’s $200 million-per-year, 31-facility collision business. “The speed of the team is the speed of the leader. You have to have the right heart, the right mind and the right attitude to do whatever it takes to win.”

That emphasis on continuous improvement, acquiring knowledge and propelling the industry forward was not only the message of Huggins’ closing session, but also the objective of the the second-annual FenderBender Management Conference. Attendees spent two-and-a-half days participating in workshops, panel discussions, sessions and networking opportunities at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Chicago. —Anna Zeck 58

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STAFF PHOTOS

2016

Pre- and Post-Repair Diagnostic Scanning

Going Lean—the Right Way The conference kicked off Monday afternoon with a workshop from Aaron Marshall on lean theory and real-world implementation. Marshall, both manager of Marshall Auto Body in Waukesha, Wis., and the recently appointed global program manager of body repair at Tesla Motors, is a renowned lean guru regarded as an example of the impact lean theory and processes can have on a collision operation.

Going lean can be a huge undertaking for a shop, and Marshall argued that for lean theory to work successfully, two major shifts are required: 1) the wiring of the culture and leadership’s philosophy, and 2) the way in which the work is organized. To do that, he recommended leaders take advantage of numerous tools with the end goal of reducing variables; one example: create a value delivery system that better serves the staff by removing the waste and addressing the top customer concerns.

When it comes to organizing the work in a way that returns meaningful information about waste in real time—one of the tenets of lean theory—he says creating a flow stream for the shop is a no-fail way to prove whether the new less-waste model will work and will immediately indicate any points where flow stops and where more effective support activities are needed.

Take a Chance, Make a Change “Are you playing to win or are you playing to not lose?”

That question was the overriding message industry consultant Mike Anderson posed to conference attendees during his opening keynote speech. Too many business owners stay in their comfort zones, afraid to take a chance and make a meaningful change that could propel their businesses to the next level, Anderson says.

“We need to quit telling ourselves these negative stories,” he says. “What you did for the past 10 years is not going to get you 10 years down the road. We need to look at what we’re going to gain, not what we’re going to lose. It’s about improving.”

In a speech full of the humorous and passionate anecdotes Anderson has become known for, he broke down the overriding benefits of being vulnerable—even in the face of failure. You don’t have to have it all figured out; tap into your employees and the people you know. Don’t be afraid to be transparent, and most importantly, share your vision.

People want to work for someone who has a dream, Anderson says, and if you’re stagnant in your dreams or beliefs, your businness will grow stagnant, too.

“Your life does not get better by chance. Your life gets better by change,” he says. “You are worthy of success. You are worthy of making a profit.”

Among the myriad conversations that took place throughout the conference, one of the most compelling—and timely— discussions centered on the pervasiveness of new technology, particularly pre- and post-repair scans. The hot topic was covered in a number of ways at the conference, first in a panel discussion entitled “The Shop of Tomorrow: Technology’s Front-to-Back Impact on the Collision Repair Process.” Scanning was also front and center in a session run by Bob McSherry, whose shop, North Haven Auto Body in North Haven, Conn., scans arguably more vehicles than any other shop in the U.S. Shop owners, industry consultants and OEM representatives offered their perspectives on the benefits and challenges of the new scanning requirements: 1. Reimbursement. Although Darrell Amberson of LaMettry’s Collision in Minnesota and McSherry say that both of their shops scan every vehicle, McSherry estimated that his shop is only reimbursed for 65-75 percent of scans.

2. Aftermarket vs. OEM scan tools. Mike Anderson argued that aftermarket scan tools do not perform at the same level as OE scan tools and said they could only guarantee their OE software’s performance.

3. Liability concerns. McSherry says there’s no excuse for not scanning every vehicle. Should a problem occur with the vehicle, your shop is liable and could be sued.

4. Sharing of data. Anderson suggests all shop owners update their customer authorization form to include language about permitting the shop to share vehicle data with appropriate parties.

5. Equipment and tooling. Beyond purchasing scan tools, McSherry says that equipment investments also include the weights and targets needed for recalibration, which, depending on the OEM, can run a shop thousands of dollars.

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Finish smart

STRATEGY

CASE STUDY

“I’ve always had the approach that I want to grow and develop.”

Tom Martin, owner, Troy CARSTAR — PAGE 68—

MAKE MONEY // SAVE MONEY // WORK SMARTER

EDUCATION+TRAINING

Five Principles to a Learning Culture How to cultivate qualities in your shop that emphasize continuous training

BY ANNA ZECK

THINKSTOCK

In 2015, roughly 6,200 shops were

either I-CAR Gold Class certified or on the path to achieving that mark.

In an industry of 30,000-plus shops, that means less than 20 percent of all shops are dedicated to I-CAR

training. And while FenderBender’s How I Work survey revealed that 76 percent of respondents have attended industry-specific management training, that number fell drastically to the low 20s when

participants were asked if they work with a consultant, are part of a 20 Group, or are association members.

Those are distressing numbers, says Jeff Peevy, president of the Automotive Management Institute OCTOBER 2016

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STRATEGY EDUCATION+TRAINING

(AMI), and the fact is, having a learning culture—a term derived from the I-CAR study that Peevy worked on during his career at the organization—that’s dedicated to training has a direct ROI. According to the study, shops that achieved I-CAR Gold Class showed improvements in four key performance indicators: • Cycle time improved by more than 14 percent • Touch time improved by nearly 34 percent • Frequency of supplements for necessary repairs overlooked in the estimate dropped by 11 percent • Customer satisfaction increased 5 percent “I believe that a learning culture is an element within a business’s culture. I also believe that it is the most important piece of a business culture when it comes to success,” Peevy says. “In the very best performing repair shops, they have ingrained in their pattern of learned assumption an understanding of the role learning plays in maintaining success.”

Whether you have some elements of a learning culture implemented in your shop or are starting from the beginning, Peevy breaks down the core principles of a learning culture.

Defining ‘Learning Culture’

In the book Creating a Learning Culture by Marcia Conner and James Clawson, the authors define learning culture “as a pattern of learned assumptions that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to the problems of survival and integration.”

Peevy says that this definition gets to the heart of how a culture develops within a business and the potential performance skills that exist.

“The idea that our employees are operating under a pattern of learned assumptions and that these assumptions are considered to be so correct 62

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in the way someone should think and act that they are taught to new members as the way to operate and act,” says Peevy. “If these patterns of learned assumptions are indeed correct, the business will be profitable, efficient, have better-thanaverage employee retention and keep up with the changes required to sustain it. If the assumptions are not correct, the business will continue to struggle and typically look externally for the reasons for it.”

Principle #1: The culture starts with leadership.

Peevy says that he lays the implementation of a learning culture squarely on management’s shoulders. While anyone can be a catalyst for adopting a learning culture in a shop, Peevy says that if leadership is not committed, it may be an uphill battle.

“The first step is that they need to believe the principle of ‘knowledge equals competitiveness’”, he says. “They have to make the connection that you can’t disconnect knowledge and competitiveness. The more knowledge you have, the more competitive you can be.”

Peevy says that learning cultures must start with leadership truly believing that learning is crucial to success and setting an expectation for themselves to learn everything they can by utilizing every resource at their disposal.

Principle #2: Encourage learning conversations.

As a leader, the next step Peevy recommends is setting an expectation that everyone in the shop should learn everything they can in every way possible. Begin to discuss things you have recently learned and encourage your staff to do the same. When you send a technician to a training class or require them to take an online class, explain why learning is important, both for them personally and for the business, and

set an expectation for the employee to take what they have learned and share it.

Peevy says recently acquired knowledge is maximized when it is shared. And when learning is expected, employees tend to sit up front, take notes and ask questions.

When it is not, the employee tends to sit in the back and does just what they have to in order to get through the class.

“A lot of times, business owners and staff will discourage staff from talking to one another because they see it as an inefficiency,” he says.

“And, agreed, it can be. But when staff is talking to one another about things they’ve learned and they’re sharing that knowledge, it’s not a waste of time. It will save time.”

Principle #3: Set an expectation to share knowledge.

This leads to the next important element of a learning culture: the expectation to share knowledge.

Peevy recommends considering establishing a quick meeting on a regular schedule that is focused solely on what the team members have learned via training since the last meeting.

“In a healthy way this drives the point home and places a bit of pressure on learning something between meetings until it becomes a habit,” Peevy says.

He also encourages starting the habit of simply asking, “What have we learned?” as a conversation starter among the team. As you move into this phase of adopting a culture of learning, be sensitive to individuals that perceive themselves as knowing everything and that lack the respect of coworkers.

This individual will work against advancing the idea of knowledge sharing, Peevy says, as they see it as a license to spend even more of their time trying to convince everyone how smart they are.

Principle #4: Make a

commitment to expertise.

Another important element in your quest to grow a learning culture within your business is to establish the need for all employees to make a personal commitment to expertise.

This seems simple enough, but Peevy says this rarely happens in practice.

“We do what we have to do to get through the day and never make the commitment to ourselves and to our boss and coworkers that we will intentionally learn and develop in every way possible within the role we have, within the business we work in,” he says. “From top to bottom, everyone needs to make that personal commitment to be an expert in what you’re doing. That becomes a habit. If you become the best detailer, you’re probably going to end up becoming the best painter.”

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Principle #5: Emphasize learning in recruiting.

The last step comes down to recruiting, and, specifically, highlighting the need to learn, grow and share knowledge as the very first qualifier used to describe what the candidate must possess to be successful within your business.

“We found this attracts a younger, more educated individual, who the repair business has likely never seen in its recruitment efforts,” he says. “Someone with experience that is attracted to the mention of a willingness to learn and share knowledge will typically have extensive training and certifications, because they have an interest in expertise.”

The typical repair businesses all highlight similar things they want in a help-wanted ad, Peevy says, such as experience, tools, highproduction capabilities and ASE certification. While he concedes that these traits are important, a willingness to learn and share knowledge should be the very first non-negotiable.

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STRATEGY FINANCE+OPERATIONS

10 Solutions for Paint Department Bottlenecks Three veteran painters detail how they get ahead of hold-ups in their departments

At a shop this large , every decision,

every movement, every action counts.

“We’ve got 15 body men and five painters, and we’re pushing over 20 cars through the paint line every day,” says Patrick Novak, painter for Crown Collision Center in St. 64

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OCTOBER 2016

Petersburg, Fla. “One slipup can create a massive bottleneck and slow everything down, and then you’re scrambling to get cars out on time.”

The good news: Novak can see those bottlenecks coming from a mile away. His 30 years of experi-

ence in the collision repair industry have prepared him for the worstcase scenarios, and he has plenty of solutions ready to combat them.

Novak and two other painters— Mason Boardman of VanPool’s Paint & Body LLC in Sikeston, Mo., and

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STRATEGY FINANCE+OPERATIONS

past FenderBender Award winner Tony Durham of Hanagan’s Auto Body in Silver Spring, Md.—use their combined 86 years of experience to offer solutions to the most pressing bottlenecks plaguing paint departments across the industr y.

—Mason Boardman, painter, VanPool’s Paint & Body

1. Evaluate the Day. Durham says to evaluate the day’s workload first thing each morning to get an idea of your schedule.

“Ever y morning when I get in, I think, what is the biggest job that has to be reassembled? ” he says.

“I’ll paint that one first. It may take longer—bumper is after that—but with cars nowadays, it takes five minutes to throw a bumper cover on, so I wait on those jobs.”

2. Ensure Every Vehicle is 100 Percent Ready for Paint.

A thorough inspection during the teardown process— especially one that involves a technician, a production manager and at least one painter —will catch any and all issues that would otherwise hold up the paint department later in the repair process. Durham says to get multiple eyes on a vehicle and reduce the chances of missing something.

“My recommendation would be standard operating procedures before any body tech takes a car and puts it in a paint line, especially in a building with a dedicated line,” he says. “Use a checklist. Make sure everything has been inspected.

Ever ything should be done on the first initial teardown.”

At many shops, Boardman says it’s common for vehicles to reach the department and have missing parts or unfinished repairs.

“If there’s a dent in the quarter, and we’re waiting on the glass company to R&I, but it’s already in the paint line, why did we push it through? ” he says. “Because then we just have to wait and it’s taking up space.”

Make sure jobs are completely 66

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“That booth needs to be running at all times with someone painting.”

OCTOBER 2016

ready for the paint booth, because sending cars through twice would create even further delays.

3. Properly Document Repair Orders.

Boardman likes to be properly informed by the time a vehicle reaches him. If he has any questions that aren’t answered by the repair order, then he has to spend time away from the booth finding answers.

“What color is the car? What’s the license plate number? T he customer’s name? The estimator assigned to the car? What parts were repaired? When is the vehicle expected out of the shop? All things that answer the questions I would have,” he says.

4. Stagger Small Jobs.

Novak says his department works best when bumper jobs are scheduled for Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

“If you schedule ever ything for Monday, then the painters are standing around on Monday morning thinking, ‘What do we do? ’” he says.

“All we can do is clean the shop a little bit. And then on Tuesday afternoon, you would get slammed with ever y car they scheduled in.

And then they’re all late. Instead, you can stagger them out.”

On Mondays, Novak suggests bringing in smaller jobs that weren’t taken apart during the estimate the week prior. Then after they’re torn down and parts are ordered, start

on repairs, and then do the smaller jobs on Tuesday.

“Then on Wednesday, when parts start coming in, they can work on those and then throw bumpers on and send the other cars into paint,” he says.

5. Color Match Early.

If possible, get color matching done before it gets to the booth.

Boardman uses downtime to evaluate vehicles with repair orders and get a jump start on color matching jobs.

“If you know you’re going to have a hard time with it, give yourself some breathing room,” he says.

“I’ll be matching colors in between paint jobs.”

6. Organize Parts Carts.

Ever ything Novak needs is on his cart, he says: masking paper, scuff pads, sandpaper, wax and grease removers, razor blades, and even a garbage can.

“I have a tray on the bottom that has all my buffing stuff. If I need to buff a car, I can just grab that tray and go knock a nib out of a car,” he says. “That helps tremendously. Because all your supplies in one spot means you’re not walking around. As soon as you walk, someone starts talking to you.

The less walking, the less talking.

You don’t get sidetracked.”

7. Designate Equipment Areas.

If some material or a piece of

equipment isn’t directly w ithin your department, Novak says it’s important to have a designated, organized, labeled area where you can retrieve supplies.

“Even small things go a long way,” he says. “If the body man is inspecting the side of a car and they have the doors open, it could get to the paint line and the batter y is dead,” he says. “Where’s the jumper box?

If you spend 20 minutes finding it, that’s time lost.”

8. Don’t Mask in the Booth.

If you’re masking in the booth, it’s taking up space from other jobs. If Boardman has a big vehicle to mask, he’ll pull four bumpers in the booth and start painting those. And in between painting and dr ying, he’ll mask cars in front of it.

“That booth needs to be running at all times with somebody painting,” he says.

9. Implement Booth Maintenance Schedules.

Have a dedicated booth maintenance schedule in place, and address any mechanical faults immediately.

“If you blow a belt in the middle of a paint cycle, it’s probably going to throw a lot of dirt in your paint job, which will also slow you down,” Durham says.

Jeff Shaffer Owner / Pfeiffer Collision

REPUTATION Because your reputation wasn’t built on compromise.

10. Hire Helpers.

In a shop the size of Novak ’s, small, extra buffs and clean-up jobs on 20 cars per day slowly eat away at his team’s time.

“It does help tremendously when we get cars out of the booth to have an assigned person to nib and buff the cars,” he says. “Sometimes we miss some dirt, the writer comes back, and I’m in the middle of painting four bumpers. I can’t stop.

“It’s worth it to pay a guy $10 an hour, to take it out of the painter’s salary—whatever it takes. It’s better than stopping your main painters.

You have to spend money to make money.”

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AN AXALTA COATING SYSTEMS BRAND

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WHEN A RECORD WINTER DERAILED HIS NEW SHOPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OPENING, TOM MARTIN WAS FORCED TO GET CREATIVE TO ACCOMMODATE THE LOSS

BY ANNA ZECK

OCTOBER 2016

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CASE STUDY

For most collision repairers, the winter of 2013–2014 would have been the stuff of dreams: One of the coldest Thanksgivings on record led to the coldest winter in 30 years for the Dayton, Ohio, region, a winter that included a “polar vortex” blowing in a record 12 consecutive sub-zero days and 53.6 inches of snow (the third-snowiest winter on record for the area)—all of which was followed by tornadoes and severe flooding of the Great Miami River in March.

But Tom Martin was less than thrilled. To him, the unrelenting winter represented wasted time, money and personnel as he tried to prepare for the opening of his second location, Troy CARSTAR in Troy, Ohio. He had planned meticulously, researching and seeking advice for more than a year prior, budgeting and combing through operational details to ensure that the new facility would run just as smoothly as his already booming CARSTAR shop in Sidney, Ohio.

As the saying goes, you can’t control the weather. And thanks to what he calls “the worst winter ever,” the ground-up construction all but came to a halt, which meant the planned New Year’s opening was effectively off the table.

“My first year, I had originally budgeted $1 million in sales,” Martin says. “That’s what I budgeted out. It became very obvious that I wouldn’t be able to open. I was losing my entire first quarter to the winter being bad.”

THE BACKSTORY

Martin was hired by the original owner of Sidney Body as a 15-year-old, and he’s never left. What was once a small, 3,000-square-foot operation in rural Sidney continued to grow, and Martin officially took control of the company in 2002. Since then, Martin has gone gangbusters: He joined CARSTAR the next year, moved to a new 8,800-square-foot facility in 2004 and was doing well above $2 million in sales in 2012. He credits much of the success to a focus on lean operations, which has resulted in 6.3-day cycle time and 3.6-hours-per-day touch time. By 2013, the shop was doing so well that the staff had effectively “worked me out of a job,” Martin says.

“My staff had grown substantially and developed to where I wasn’t in the day-to-day operations. I just pretty much coached,” he says. “I’ve always had the approach that I wanted to grow and develop. And I needed a job!”

That’s when Martin began toying with the idea of opening a second franchise.

He talked to other CARSTAR owners who had second and third locations, conducted market research and gained as much advice as he could to determine if his operation was truly ready.

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“I didn’t want to go in blind,” he says.

“I had great guidance and I felt that it was time. I wanted to see if we could duplicate what we did with Sidney because we did such a great job and I really thought we could grow the business.”

THE PROBLEM

Throughout 2013, Martin’s plans for the second location kept moving: With his existing Sidney location as the model, Martin looked to enter a similarly sized rural community where he knew he could market well and capitalize on word-ofmouth referrals. He eventually settled on Troy, Ohio, a town of 25,000 located 20 miles south of Sidney.

“Troy looked like a very good opportunity,” he says. “There was nobody bringing the service that I felt my staff and I could bring.”

Martin initially wanted to take over a solid pre-existing business from an owner looking to retire, but couldn’t find a business to fit his model. So, instead, he decided on a ground-up construction project. Because he had gone through expansions with his Sidney location, Martin both felt he was well equipped to handle a ground-up construction and knew what he wanted in the new

TROY CARSTAR —

LOCATION:

TROY, OHIO OWNER:

TOM MARTIN SIZE:

12,600 SQUARE FEET STAFF:

16 AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT:

120 ANNUAL REVENUE:

$3 MILLION

location. He wanted at least 8,000 square feet of production space, 2,000 square feet of front office space, dedicated space for an Enterprise partner and sufficient room for a potential expansion in the future. Martin began hiring and assembling a team that would be able to carry out the culture he had created at his Sidney store. He also planned to bring over a manager and production manager from that store to ensure that culture was instilled.

Unfortunately, delays occurred throughout the process of purchasing the property and selecting a construction company, which tacked on an extra two months before they could break ground.

Although Martin was still dedicated to an opening date of Jan. 1, 2014, construction didn’t begin until early November. That meant that exterior work was being completed much later than expected—and that’s where the problems occurred. Early and heavy snow and ice storms began hitting the area and while the construction crew tried its best to continue working, Martin says it was slow going, at best.

“It was real cold and there was tons of snow and they just couldn’t build,” he says. “It took longer to build anything

Adjusting to Challenges After successfully growing his first CARSTAR shop, Tom Martin (left) decided to try his luck opening a second location. Although a tough winter delayed plans, a unique solution forced his staff to bond and work collaboratively.

because there was so much snow. They had to build up tarps so they could do some masonry work. Everything slowed way down in the construction area.”

COURTESY TROY CARSTAR

THE SOLUTION

Meanwhile, although construction at the Troy location had come to a crawl, business at Sidney was booming.

“Along with all that bad weather, it caused lots of accidents,” Martin says.

“Our typical first quarter in Sidney grew 30 percent that quarter. That’s how busy it was.”

In fact, it was so busy that Martin didn’t think the Sidney store could keep up. And with the Troy store staffed but sitting dormant, Martin decided to take an unusual approach: He temporarily moved the six staff members from the Troy store into the Sidney location.

Martin says doing so allowed him to do multiple things: effectively accommodate the influx of work; utilize the newly hired staff until the Troy store opened; recoup lost sales from the second store’s opening delay; and train the new staff and instill the shop culture even before opening.

“I got to see everybody under fire,” he says. “There were some that didn’t

make it and we brought the next one in.

It worked out really well.”

Space was limited, to be sure. The 15-employee shop was already maxing out its 8,000 square feet, which only included 1,200 feet of office space. Staff was forced to get creative and make do with the space available. Martin gave up his office and made two workstations to house estimators. Technicians gave up some production floor to allow for a small makeshift production office where two people were stationed.

Martin had always subscribed to lean philosophies and systems, but the staff was forced to adhere even more strictly to those processes to ensure that work could properly flow through the shop.

The benefit of this, Martin says, is that the new staff members were able to train alongside veteran employees.

THE AFTERMATH

While it wasn’t an ideal situation initially, Martin says that the decision to bring the new staff to the Sidney store was actually a blessing in disguise.

“I really look like a genius, honestly, and it was all luck,” he says. “Even though we were all cramped into a small space, we had a lot of work to produce.

I was training people and it worked out quite well.”

The Sidney store ended up producing record numbers and finished the year at $2.9 million in sales.

The Troy store eventually opened on March 31, 2014 and Martin transitioned his staff over—first moving half the team at the initial opening, then shifting the rest when work load demanded it. To Martin’s surprise, even with the lost first quarter, the Troy store still finished out its first year at $1.2 million in sales.

And he credits a lot of that success to his team, the training they were able to partake in during those winter months at the Sidney store, and the bond it eventually created.

THE TAKEAWAY

Martin has always been a big believer in finding the right team and developing those employees, and the exercise of opening his second location only strengthened that belief. Martin says he’s always keeping an eye out for potential new employees, be it by being an advisory board member at the local career center or getting to know people in the community. Ultimately, he says, it comes down to finding people with great attitude and involving them in your growth.

“My approach to all of our growth is that I would go back to my key people,” he says. “‘This is what I want to do. This is why I want to do it. How do we get to where we want to go?’ That’s the culture that we developed and built over the years. That culture has let me achieve a lot of success.”

OCTOBER 2016

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OCTOBER 2016

IN THE TRENCHES

DARRELL AMBERSON

Coming Up Short It’s up to us as shop operators to take control of the technician shortage

THINKSTOCK

Ask most collision repair operators what

their greatest challenges are and their responses would surely include getting new staff, especially technicians.

It may even be their first and most significant challenge. Many of us give our time and resources to help support vocational technical schools, assist in recruiting exercises, offer internships and hire untrained people in an effort to bring more people into our industry.

It’s what we should all be doing for the good of the industry. And because of the shortage of candidates, it is what many of us have to do to get new people. We simply don’t have a choice.

Yet when I speak to recruiters, technical school administrators and counselors, there is one big factor that restricts our efforts: The average starting pay for new graduates in our industry lags well behind other comparable trades. Carpenters, plumbers, machinists and welders post a higher starting level of compensation. The fact that body and paint technicians can make more than other trades after years of perfecting their skills and increasing their productivity is a rarely visited statistic and garners less attention for those choosing a new trade. To make matters worse, most technicians are expected to provide their own tools, which can be a monumental expense for an entry level person.

To some extent, it is understandable why this occurs. New graduates often have very limited skills and productivity levels that are a fraction of a proficient journeyman’s. I am sure most of us have heard many times from new technicians that they learn more in the first few months of working in a shop than they did in two

years of technical school.

As business operators, we tend to think of compensating staff in terms of what they produce in short periods, such as one or two weeks. As a result, we often compensate these people at a rate comparable to or a little more than what they may make in a fast food restaurant or convenience store.

This structure allows us to reward those technicians over a period of time by increasing their compensation as their skills and productivity grows. It’s gratifying for all of us and provides an incentive for the technician to continue growing. It all seems to fit, work well and make sense.

That is, until we realize we’ve cut ourselves—and our industry—short by providing reasons for entry-level people to choose a different trade.

There is no simple answer to this dilemma. If technical schools produced graduates with a higher level of capability, it would help. But their task is not easy to accomplish already.

I hear from some instructors that they have the lowest caliber of entry-level students they’ve ever experienced, largely because there are far fewer amateurs and enthusiasts who work on their own vehicles and thus have some basic understanding of auto repair. Many new students have hardly turned a wrench and have little idea what they are getting into.

Simply increasing compensation levels for newly hired graduates would

obviously help, but collision repair shops often operate on modest profit margins and insurers keep us at competitive rates.

I don’t see anyone or any entity coming to our rescue and changing the situation. Market conditions will help, but will not solve the issue in the foreseeable future. Supply and demand conditions will cause the technician shortage to drive up overall compensation, and eventually, there will be more techs as a result of higher earnings, especially if entry-level compensation goes up. But that could take years.

Many consolidators and MSOs are responding to the issue by training people that come with little or no training. Some are even setting up their own training departments or academies. This takes more candidates from the pool that may otherwise wind up in a technical school or apply at your shop. In other words, the situation is becoming more challenging and it is up to each of us as repairers to embrace this problem and find creative solutions.

Entry-level pay is a big part of it.

There are other options, too, including assisting entry-level techs with school tuition, assisting them with tool purchases and providing some training from your existing staff. Doing our own recruiting, in addition to participating in formal recruiting functions should be part of the effort, as well. It is up to us to take control.

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QUESTIONS

A Call for Mandatory Pre and Post-Repair Scanning A number of OEMs, including American Honda, have released statements requiring pre- and post-repair scanning on all vehicles AS TOLD TO TESS COLLINS

On July 15, American Honda Motor Co. announced that all of its vehicles involved in a collision require a pre- and post-repair scan to determine if any diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) are present. Safety and driver assistance systems will also require inspection, calibration and aiming after the repair, according to the announcement. Both Fiat Chrysler Autombiles (FCA) and Toyota made similar announcements, and General Motors (GM) is rumored to have a statement coming, signaling a dramatic trend in the industry.

During this year’s NACE/CARS Conference & Expo in Anaheim, Calif., FenderBender columnist Mike Anderson led a panel of OEM and insurance representatives on the topic, and the consensus among the automakers represented (Honda, Toyota, FCA, GM, Audi, and Nissan North America) was that pre- and post-repair scanning is a quality issue for all parties involved and the only way to accurately identify damage. Chris Tobie, collision business specialist at American Honda, took part in that panel and shares why Honda decided to take this position and what it means for collision repairers.

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right for this position statement.

What is the importance of pre- and postrepair scanning, particuarly as it relates to the collision repair process?

A pre-repair scan must be done during blueprinting for the final estimate to learn what DTCs are stored in the vehicle and, therefore, which systems may have been af fected by the unknown collision forces. This helps ensure any damage becomes part of the estimate and repair plans and might help reduce surprises and repair supplements. If vehicle damage prevents scan tool communication, then the pre-scan must be done as soon as repairs can safely allow scan tool communication to be re-established. A post-repair scan confirms all issues related to the collision have been corrected, including those DTCs that might have been set during the repair process.

The position statement says that scanning must be done on all vehicles that have been in a collision.

Why is it imperative to do this with

every vehicle?

Basically, a proper repair is that important and we wanted to place suf ficient emphasis where necessar y. In a mechanical repair situation, we often have a customer complaint that leads us down a diagnostic path where scans and calibrations are an integral part of the published repair procedures. In a collision, we have a complex situation where a vehicle has received some unknown G-force impact to the body and electronic components. Without the proper diagnostic scans, we don’t know what problems might exist or whether the vehicle was completely and properly repaired. We recognize that cost control is required and a necessar y part of any business. However, cost control at the expense of a complete and proper repair is an unacceptable situation to American Honda.

For shops that weren’t previously doing pre- and post-repair scans, what will they have to do to prepare for this?

There are basically three options.

COURTESY CHRIS TOBIE

Why did Honda feel it was necessary to release a position statement on preand post-repair scanning?

We are always listening to our ProFirst shops and attending events to learn the issues that are facing the industr y. The topic of pre- and post-repair scanning became ver y hot last year and we started researching the actual situation. Our initial research showed considerable “gray area” and most manufacturers hadn’t provided any guidance to the collision industr y on what diagnostic scans and postrepair calibrations were required and expected in these situations.

Frankly, some of the misinformation floating around the industr y caused us great concern. American Honda is committed to the complete and proper repair of our vehicles and we felt there was an obligation to inform the entire industr y of our position on the matter, the reason behind that position, and where to obtain scanning resources.

When the ever-increasing electrical complexity of our vehicles was also taken into consideration, the time was

The shop can establish a business relationship with a local Honda and Acura dealer to handle all of the requirements. Or, the shop can do the scan and calibration work themselves by purchasing our i-HDS software and equipment, plus any other required tools and ser vice information specified in the position statement, and then train personnel to use the i-HDS. Lastly, the shop can contract with a third-party vendor to do the required tasks. If a shop chooses this option, they must carefully evaluate the capabilities and skills of available providers. American Honda does not currently recommend or endorse any third-party diagnostic scan and calibration providers.

Will Honda provide any type of training support to shop related to vehicle scanning?

Using a scan tool to read DTCs is pretty

repair training series delivered by I-CAR. A second online HON course about preand post-repair scanning is also under consideration.

“American Honda expects the industry to adapt and follow the guidelines detailed in the position statement.”

—Chris Tobie, collision business specialist, American Honda

straight forward and a matter of following on-screen prompts. However, if training is required, all of the online technical training we provide to Honda and Acura dealers can be purchased and downloaded from Helm Incorporated. We are planning to create an online training course on driver support systems calibrations as part of our HON collision

Shortly after Honda made the announcement, Toyota made a similar one. Do you think this is the direction that all OEMs will go?

Several OEMs have now issued similar statements, but any comment on whether others in the industr y would follow would be speculation.

What impact do you think this announcement will have on collision repairers?

This position statement represents change. Like any other change, it will take some time for the industr y to get used to it. American Honda expects the industr y to adapt and follow the guidelines detailed in the position statement.

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INNOVATIONS

Detailed Efficiency Forest Home CARSTAR Auto Body uses pump-style sprayers to boost detailing department efficiency

BY JEFF KNOESPEL

organized on a designated cart.

THE INSPIRATION: Detailers at Forest Home CARSTAR Auto Body

were going through many spray bottles for the various chemicals used in detailing vehicles. Either the spray bottles would wear out and get clogged every few weeks, or the technicians would misplace them. Owner Martin Zabel wanted to spend less money on new spray bottles.

Pumped-Up Production Shop owner Martin Zabel took an ordinary shop item—pump-style spray bottles commonly used in the paint department—to speed up his detail team’s everyday work.

HOW IT’S MADE: Zabel bought and repurposed BASF pump sprayers

to use with the detailing chemicals and dedicated the cart to the detailing department to store them.

THE COST: Zabel bought the pump-style spray bottles from his

BASF jobber. “Sometimes the jobbers will tie it into a big purchase,” he says. Forest Home CARSTAR Auto Body already had the “baker”-style cart on hand.

THE ROI: Zabel estimates he spends less money on the spray

bottles. Though the pump-style sprayers are more expensive, Forest Home CARSTAR Auto Body has to replace them less often.

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Forest Home CARSTAR Auto Body INNOVATOR:

Martin and Debra Zabel LOCATION:

Milwaukee, Wis. SIZE:

Two buildings—4,500 square feet and 2,500 square feet

WHAT IT DOES: Zabel decided to implement pump-style spray

bottles (like the ones typically used in the paint department) for the chemicals used by the detailing team. Each bottle is clearly marked with the chemical’s name or purpose, whether it is a window cleaner or a more harsh product. He then used a “baker”style cart to store and organize the detailing chemicals; he added brackets to the cart from which to hang the spray pumps.

SHOP:

STAFF:

6 “If it lasts a year, and you’re AVERAGE MONTHLY CAR COUNT: going through eight or nine a 60 year of the other ones plus you’re ANNUAL REVENUE: losing time, those pump sprayers $1.3 million are a bargain,” he says. “Plus you’re saving a ton of time.”

The detail technicians now spend about five minutes preparing to detail a vehicle whereas before, they might have had to spend 15 or 20 minutes walking around to locate the spray bottles. Moreover, the detailers no longer waste time working with worn-out or clogged spray bottles.

“As you find more efficient ways of doing things, you find that you can get more through your shop,” Zabel says. “This is one of those small pieces that as you implement it and then stay on top of it, it’s one of those cost-saving steps that helps you get more through the shop.”

» Did you develop an innovative shop tool or piece of equipment to improve your operation? Tell us about it at submissions@fenderbender.com CLICK HERE

COURTESY MARTIN ZABEL

WHAT IT IS: Pump-style sprayers used in the detailing department,

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Always keep a strategy in your back pocket.

As long as you have your phone, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have access to the premier collision repair podcast from FenderBender. Every month, CollisionCast will bring on a special guest and dive deeper into a featured FenderBender story.

Tangents, questions, opinions.

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OCTOBER 2016

2016 EDITION SPECIAL PROMOTION

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YOU NEED TO RUN A MORE EFFICIENT & PROFITABLE COLLISION REPAIR SHOP

IF YO U C O U LD C R E ATE THE U LTIM ATE C OLLI SION R E PA IR SH OP, W H AT W OUL D I T INCLUDE?

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Chances are, your ideal shop is filled with top-of-the-line tools, equipment, and technology that will meet the needs of today’s ever-changing vehicles.

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“INCREASED USE OF TECHNOLOGY, ADVANCED MATERIALS, TRAINING DEMANDS—THE LIST GOES ON AND ON. WITH ALL OF THESE OBSTACLES, IT’S ESSENTIAL THAT SHOP OWNERS HAVE THE BEST EQUIPMENT AND SUPPORT POSSIBLE. ” 80

TA BLE O F C O NTE NT S 82–83

Electronic Management System

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Induction Heating Equipment

102–103

Paint Booth

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Spray Gun

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Air Filtration and Airlines

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ELECTRONIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION MITCHELL INTERNATIONAL STREAMLINES THE REPAIR PROCESS BY OFFERING A SUITE OF CONNECTED SYSTEMS Collision repair shop operators have a lot to deal with on a daily basis. Communicating with customers. Ensuring clear, accurate estimates. Building a proper schedule. Completing proper repairs. Finding efficient parts procurement solutions. Breaking down bottlenecks. Keeping clear financial documentation.

The list goes on and on.

Meanwhile, shops are faced with an additional disconnect by attempting to manage everything through multiple software systems— making the daily grind of running a shop even more difficult.

But that’s where Mitchell comes in. Mitchell developed an electronic management system that provides a seamless management process for every aspect of shop operations, from customer check-in through vehicle delivery.

Keeping the ultimate collision repair shop in mind, Mitchell provides a full suite of electronic management offerings that seamlessly integrate with one another to create a cohesive system within the shop.

“Mitchell RepairCenter, Mitchell Connect and Mitchell Parts have been designed to work together and are fueled by integrated function to help repair facilities make better decisions,” says Debbie Day, executive vice president and general manager of Auto Physical Damage at Mitchell. “These management system offerings were designed to be the three legs of the stool that work together to take the guesswork out of the repair process.”

MITCHELL REPAIRCENTER RepairCenter allows users to track work processes while providing real-time insight into a shop’s financial performance.

Through RepairCenter, users can view KPIs on the dashboard and easily share this information. RepairCenter integrates with all major accounting packages, and offers all of the tools that shop owners need to

better manage repairs, customer satisfaction and the overall business.

Offerings within RepairCenter include: Production Management Module: The redesigned Production Management module within RepairCenter allows users to monitor where vehicles are in the repair process and move jobs in and out of repair stages efficiently.

TechAdvisor: TechAdvisor within RepairCenter provides users with integrated access to OEM repair procedures and data.

Mobile: The RepairCenter mobile app allows technicians access to the RepairCenter from their smartphones or tablets. With RepairCenter Mobile, users can automatically attach photos to the RO, view and assign tasks, manage and update the current status and location of an in-progress repair.

ToolStore: ToolStore is an add-on feature that allows RepairCenter and third-party partners to share information seamlessly. Doing this saves users the time of having to re-key information and manage multiple accounts.

Hub: The RepairCenter Hub allows users to communicate and collaborate with other users.

MITCHELL CONNECT “Mitchell Connect has been deployed in over 31,000 Mitchell repair facilities,” Day says.

“It’s been pressure tested and is a very high82

quality, scalable solution.”

Connect streamlines communication between body shops and insurance companies. Connect allows insurance companies to expand their networks to include repair shops, even those that are non-DRP partners. Because of this, assignments can be dispatched to the best qualified repair facility without the need for manual communication.

Shops that are already using Mitchell software will be able to upload estimates and documentation into the shop’s current platform. Connect is fully integrated with Mitchell WorkCenter.

MITCHELL PARTS According to Mitchell data, parts account for about 47 percent of the estimate. Using multiple, disconnected systems can slow down the process of obtaining these parts, which can frustrate repairers and disappoint customers. By streamlining parts procurement, repair facilities can save time and money while decreasing cycle time and increasing customer satisfaction.

Mitchell Parts connects repair facilities with suppliers and streamlines the parts procurement process. With one click, shop owners and technicians are able to pull up information on suppliers and order parts.

Mitchell Parts tracks analytics of suppliers, and provides feedback to owners. The provided analytics help alert users to problems or potential roadblocks in procuring parts.

Within Parts, repair facilities have the option of setting up profiles of favorite suppliers. For example, a repair facility that has guaranteed a customer a finished job within five days will be able to look at suppliers that are able to deliver parts within that time.

“The biggest thing that everyone in our industry wants is to satisfy the customers,” Day says. “Parts is a key way to do that.”

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ESTIMATING TOOLS

ELIMINATE REKEYING SAVE TIME BY DIGITALLY UPLOADING ESTIMATES THROUGH ESTIFY TRANSFER Jordan Furniss, president of Estify, did not have a background in collision repair, but that did not stop him from finding a way to solve a major problem in the industry. With Estify, Furniss has found a way to eliminate the rekeying problem faced by collision centers around the country.

Estify was created after Furniss, a business student at Brigham Young University, had a frustrating experience visiting a few different body shops. Furniss was alarmed by the estimate writing process and the time it took.

“To me, it just seemed like the process was broken and inefficient,” Furniss says.

With determination and a problem to solve, Furniss and his schoolmate, Taylor Moss, got to work and formed Estify—an innovative company using technology to solve common industry problems and make shops more efficient.

ESTIFY TRANSFER Estify Transfer, the company's maiden product that launched in 2014, allows shop owners to simply take an estimate in PDF form and upload it to his or her Estify account online. Estify then sends it back in the data format the shop needs for CCC, Mitchell, or Audatex. Transfer can also be used on a mobile phone so hard copies of estimates can be photographed and upload digitally.

“The old way of doing things wasted hours and contributed nothing to the bottom line,” says Furniss. “Transfer takes that burden away.”

“We’ve built a really elegant and streamlined product that’s simple to use,” Furniss adds. “The user experience is pressing a button, coming back and importing it into the system.”

AN OUTSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE Furniss says that his lack of industry experi-

(left to right) Jordan Furniss, Taylor Moss, Rochelle Thielen and Randy Adams

ence proved to be a large advantage as he and Moss began working on their breakthrough innovation.

“We had no preconceived notions of how things should work, we just wanted to find the best solution,” Furniss says.

After noticing this problem, he began consulting with people who were knowledgeable in the industry. What he found was there was a major disconnect in the way that insurance companies and collision shops moved information back and forth.

“I remember we were at a shop one day observing and I heard this groan; it sounded like someone was in pain,” Furniss recalls.

“We ran down the hall to see what was wrong and there was a shop employee with a whole stack of estimates from different insurance companies in front of her and she had to recreate them all in her system.”

Estify was founded in 2012 with idea that shops would never have to spend valuable time duplicating information when it could all be done digitally.

IMPRESSIVE GROWTH Since Estify began, it has expanded from its two founders to a team of nearly 100.

In 2016, the company’s month-to-month revenue growth was over 20 percent.

Recent additions to the team include industry veteran Rochelle Thielen, who stepped into the role of CEO, and Randy Adams, a former colleague of Steve Jobs.

“Estify is really beefing up its team with experts from outside of the industry,” Thielen says. “Our knowledgeable staff will be able to solve some of the collision industry’s biggest problems with technology.”

Thielen says that Estify has established itself as a strategic partner for larger organizations and is gaining popularity in the industry.

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THE POWER OF CHOICE One of the founding principles of Estify is that shop owners should have a choice in how to do business and not be restricted by mandates.

“As long as we offer good products and services, we can offer choices to the industry,” Furniss says.

“Everything we do is focused around giving shops, carriers, and independent adjusters the freedom to pick what they do and not place restrictions on them,” Thielen adds.

Thielen explains that users have the choice of writing the estimate in the system that they are most comfortable with and Estify will take it and recreate it in the needed format.

TIME SAVINGS AND ACCURACY Amato’s Auto Body in San Diego has used Estify Transfer for about a year and a half.

Owner Paul Amato says Transfer saves his shop about 16 hours per week in rekeying time.

Transfer has been extremely helpful when it comes to the exotic cars that the San Diego shop serves, especially Teslas, Amato says.

Mike Grauer, manager at Amato’s, agrees and adds that most of the exotic vehicles that Amato’s works on come with handwritten estimates and Estify is great at matching those.

THE FUTURE Estify is a company that was founded on the belief that one idea can change the industry, but it’s not stopping at just one. Furniss says that Estify will always strive to build better products to improve the repair process. The company has a unique sense of alignment with the future of technology-driven collision repair and is on the brink of releasing its next solution, which will again empower their partners to aggressively but elegantly align themselves with what many consider to be the fastest period of change in the history of the industry.

STOP MANUALLY REKEYING ESTIMATES.

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PARTS AND MATERIALS RACKS/STANDS

EFFICIENCY BY DESIGN INNOVATIVE TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES CREATES HIGH-QUALITY CARTS, RACKS AND STANDS THAT MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY IN ANY SIZE SHOP It’s not just a name. It’s a company motto.

It’s an innovative design, says Bryan Johnson, founder of Innovative Tools and Technologies. Johnson’s company is all about creating the most efficient tools possible by designing products that not only keep collision shops organized, but also take up the least amount of space possible.

Johnson’s knack for creating quality carts, racks and stands can be traced back to his time as a technician. His 21 years in the industry have given him the ability to anticipate and solve a problem in a shop before anyone even realizes that there is a problem.

Even though Johnson has worked in the trenches himself and has a good idea of what will and won’t work, he still places a high value on feedback from others in the industry. This is why he continues to take advantage of trade shows and uses shops as test facilities, like Tim Beal’s shop, Cycle Time Solutions in Prescott, Ariz.

Beal was looking to make his shop more efficient and increase productivity. That’s when he was introduced to Innovative.

Impressed with the design and variety of products, Beal signed up to become a test shop. The team at Cycle Time Solutions uses almost all of the company’s products, including the parts stands, parts rack and parts cart.

“Bryan does the necessary research to make sure that all of his products work and work the best. He designs all of his products for space efficiency, many of the products even fold up, allowing them to be easily stored. The wheels on the products allow you to roll everything around, which is very efficient,” Beal says.

Carts, racks and stands may seem like simple products, and there’s no shortage of them on the market, but there’s a special

consideration in the way that Johnson engineers his that make them top of the line.

“Every piece I create I believe is the best out there. I over-engineer. The collision repair industry can be a hostile environment, so I use heavier tubing and provide a lifetime warranty on everything except my paint racks. My philosophy is to try and get the product to do as much as it can with as few moving parts as possible, so it's quick and easy to use,” Johnson says.

He also knows that floor space in a shop is at a premium, so all of the pieces that Innovative produces are designed to have a small footprint. All of the company’s racks, carts and stands are also made out of heavy-duty steel and use industrial-grade, total-lock caster wheels for increased mobility.

Innovative’s Parts Cart has helped keep Beal’s shop organized. The entire job is able to be organized on one cart, he explains. If anybody in the shop needs something for that job, they know it’s on that cart. That cuts down on time spent searching for materials.

One of the many highlights from Innovative’s line is its new adhesive cart.

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The idea for it came from Johnson’s observation of what went on in shop supply rooms. Someone would go in for a product and inevitably somebody else would have grabbed the last one. The function of all of the point-of-use carts is to organize everything needed for a job in one place.

With the adhesive cart, there’s room for backup materials to prevent running out of anything. With this product, jobbers don’t have to spend time digging through boxes in a supply room and materials aren’t being misplaced or thrown out prematurely.

“Everything they make is about improving efficiency and making repairs faster,” Beal says.

For him, working with Innovative Tools and Technologies has been a breeze. The representation and professionalism of the company is second to none, he says.

Others in the industry seem to agree, as Innovative Tools and Technologies supplies to many MSOs and counts SherwinWilliams, FinishMaster, LKQ/Keystone and National Coatings as its distributors. For more information on Innovative Tools and Technologies, go to innovativetools.com.

ALUMINUM REPAIR TOOLS

COLLISION REPAIR TOOLS FOR THE VEHICLE OF TODAY EVER-EVOLVING REPAIR PROCEDURES REQUIRE TOOLS THAT WERE BUILT FOR THE LONG HAUL To understand Chief’s place in the industry, Bob Holland, the company’s director of collision sales in North and South America, says to look at the numbers. Since it was founded 40 years ago, Chief has sold more than 40,000 frame racks; compare that to the industry’s 38,000 or so shops, and Holland’s point is clear: Chief has a dominant presence in the marketplace.

Trusted, proven and always on the cutting edge, Chief is now leading the industry through its transition into performing aluminum structural repairs. The company’s suite of aluminum repair equipment is used in tech schools to train the technicians of tomorrow. It’s used by independent, MSO and dealership shops alike to deliver repeatable, quality repairs.

The thought of becoming aluminum capable can be intimidating for shop operators, says Chief’s OEM and strategic accounts manager Richard Perry, but the ease of use, universality and compatibility of Chief’s equipment (including some you already have) make the transition seamless—and profitable.

NO NEED TO INVEST IN ALL-NEW EQUIPMENT Equipment for collision shops does not come cheap. Chief has created tools that are built to last and work with the equipment that a shop already has. Perry says the company wants shops to be able to invest gradually and not have to spend $100,000 on entirely new equipment. There’s no need for shops to invest in a new frame rack if the current one still gets the job done. Simply adding a structural holding system or a bench can extend the usefulness of a shop’s current rack.

STRUCTURAL HOLDING SYSTEM Perry, one of the designers of Chief’s structural holding systems, says that they were designed to work with Chief racks

that are currently in use.

“Even if a shop has a rack that’s 30–35 years old, the structural holding system will adapt to the top of the deck,” Perry says.

“There’s no need to reinvest in a new rack.”

Shops without Chief equipment are in luck. Chief has adapters that will allow the structural holding system to work with most other brands, Perry says. In addition to its universal structural holding system, Chief has also created vehicle-specific holding systems, including adapters for the Cadillac CT6 and the Ford F-150. The design was built with longevity in mind, so the structural holding system will adapt to future racks, as well.

MULTI-POINT HOLDING CAPABILITIES The structural holding and pulling systems available from Chief have been built with today’s stronger vehicles in mind. Most advanced steel and aluminum components can’t be repaired by traditional pulling or heating methods, but the components around them can still be pulled. The most efficient way to reverse vehicle damage, Perry says, is through multiple, simultaneous pulls using equalized pressure. This technique enables the technician to square the center section of the vehicle. Then the mild steel damage can be corrected or sectioned as defined by OEM repair procedures. The Chief structural holding systems hold the vehicle in place throughout the repair procedures.

GLOBALJIG BENCHES To complement the frame racks most U.S. collision repair shops rely on, Chief now offers Globaljig benches, which can deliver eightpoint holding for unibody vehicles.

Erik Larum, managing director of Globaljig North America, says there are a few things that a shop should consider when adding a bench system. First, is its ease of use.

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Globaljig benches can be set up in just three to four steps, far fewer than other benches, Larum says. Shops also want to consider the flexibility of the system. For example, Globaljig benches can be used as fixturing, holding, or standard frame repair systems.

Vulcan ADU

MI200T Spot Welder

Heavy-Duty Rivet Gun

NEW PRODUCT OFFERINGS Holland outlines Chief’s new offerings that address the materials that are being used in the vehicle manufacturing industry today: MI200T Spot Welder: Fully automatic and at a reasonable price, this welder with lightweight transformer pliers is more powerful, more efficient and more maneuverable than other spot welders and meets OEM requirements.

Vulcan ADU: In order to separate bonded pieces, many technicians turn to chiseling, which can create damage. The patentpending Vulcan ADU breaks the structural adhesive bond with infrared technology, which makes the materials easy to separate without the risk of damage.

Heavy-Duty Rivet Gun: The versatile system is Mercedes-Benz certified and allows users to install flow form and self-piercing rivets and punch holes. The rivet gun has a retract feature, which allows for clean removal of the punching tool even when multimaterial techniques are used that can include very hard Boron Steel.

Visit us at SEMA BOOTH #10116.

When your craftsmanship gets paired with our high-tech tools, there’s no such thing as good-as-new – it’s just new. Breathe new life into your projects with our full line of innovative collision repair tools, training and unrivaled support.

chiefautomotive.com/nothingelse/fb

NOTHING ELSE IS A

PLASTIC WELDING EQUIPMENT

BOOST PLASTIC REPAIRS WITH POLYVANCE THE COMPANY’S NITROGEN PLASTIC WELDING SYSTEM ALLOWS A SHOP TO DO MORE PLASTIC REPAIRS INSTEAD OF REPLACEMENTS

Linda Harrison, owner of Elite Customs in St. Peters, Mo., has one regret when it comes to working with Polyvance: She wishes the shop would have done it sooner.

Elite Customs has used Polyvance’s nitrogen plastic welding equipment since the beginning of 2016 and raves about the savings it has provided the shop and its customers.

“It’s terrific. It’s absolutely terrific,” Harrison says. “For customers that have a small split in their cover, they would normally have to get it replaced. Now they don’t have to.”

Harrison says that she saw immediate results with the nitrogen welding system. In just three months, she had a dozen customers with discounted deductibles.

“The ability to repair plastic will enable the shop to provide options to save money for its self-pay customers,” says Kurt Lammon, president of Polyvance. “This is important for customers with high deductibles, which are becoming more common.”

PREVALENCE OF PLASTIC A nitrogen welding system may not have been on the top of every shop’s wish list a few years ago, but the increase in the use of plastic in vehicle design (due in part to CAFE mandates) has made plastic repairs a must for today’s collision repair shops,

Lammon says. Plastics are not going away; they will only become more prevalent, he explains. Shops that have the equipment and training to repair plastics will be able to take advantage of these opportunities.

“Look at how many parts in the front end of a vehicle are made of plastic: bumper fascia, headlights, radiator core supports, hood closure plastic, radiator overflow bottles, windshield washer bottles, inner fender liners, undercar fairings, and air boxes,” Lammon says. “These are all nonstructural parts that can be repaired if it makes economic sense to do so.”

Wes Murphy, general manager of the Wreck Room in Villa Park, Ill., says the results he’s seen working with the plastic repair equipment have been amazing.

“The plastic repair equipment is so versatile,” Murphy says. “We use it for bumpers, headlights—literally anything that is plastic, you can weld. The plastic even seems stronger after the repair.”

REPAIR VS. REPLACE With the use of high-strength steels and alternate materials becoming more common, the opportunities for shops to perform repairs are diminishing.

“Since profit margins on repair labor 90

are at least twice that of replacement parts, shops need to look at every opportunity to do repair work to increase the shop’s gross profit margin. Plastic repair is that opportunity,” Lammon says.

Headlights are an example. Starting in 2017, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) will require a headlight function test in order to achieve a Top Safety Pick+ rating, which means more expensive headlights are on the way. Often times, shops are forced to discard headlights that have a tab broken off because they don’t have the tools necessary to repair them.

“The welding system enables us to repair the existing piece, which reduces the cost for the customer. Broken headlights can cost between $1,000 to $2,000. By replacing the tabs instead, we’re able to save the customer money,” Harrison says.

The cost of replacing parts is expensive, and getting even more so.

“With OEMs pursuing design patents on crash parts and requiring core charges on bumper fascia, the cost of the bumper fascia will be on the rise.

Expensive replacement parts provide more profitable repair opportunities for shops,” Lammon says.

Murphy says Wreck Room’s repair vs. replace numbers are consistently between 45 and 51 percent since the shop started working with Polyvance in January, an increase from its previous range of 35–44 percent.

Repairing vs. replacing parts can reduce refinish materials cost and increase referrals from insurance partners, which add to the benefits of the nitrogen welding system.

“Using the equipment for repairs, we have a 50 percent gross profit on labor,” Murphy says. “This is cheaper for the insurance companies, which they like, and our cycle time has gone from 4.6 to 3.7 days.”

INDUCTION HEATING EQUIPMENT

FLAMELESS REPAIR TOM GOUGH’S COMPANY, INDUCTION INNOVATIONS, HAS FOUND A WAY TO REMOVE GLASS AND OTHER MATERIALS IN A SAFER, MORE EFFICIENT WAY Working as a collision repair technician for 28 years, Tom Gough, president of Induction Innovations, was always looking for a more efficient and easier way to get the job done. His search led him to the discovery of induction heat and the founding of his company, Induction Innovations.

Gough’s company produces induction heat systems that allow shops to be more time and energy efficient while cutting down on material costs.

THE ORIGIN Tom Gough was working as a volunteer firefighter when the idea for Induction Innovations came to him. His partner at the station was an electrical engineer and was talking to Gough one day about a project that he was doing that involved induction heating. Gough was familiar with induction heating and had seen it used in other industries, but that conversation with his partner sparked his curiosity on how it could be used in his own industry. That was the beginning of Induction Innovations.

INDUCTION HEAT Gough explains that induction heating will work on any material that a magnet is attracted to. The process bonds metals by using a high-frequency magnetic field instead of an open flame. Collision repair shops that are interested can pick from two lines that each come with three attachments, making it more versatile and able to handle more jobs.

The Inductor Max and Glass Blaster: The Glass Blaster removes outside windshields in less than 15 minutes and quarter panels in less than three. With the induction heat, the interior trim does not need to be removed and there’s no damage to the encapsulant.

The Inductor Pro-Max: The Pro-Max generates invisible heat to remove adhesives that are bonded to metal including vinyl graphics and body trim.

EFFICIENT GLASS REMOVAL Jerry Wientjes, owner of McCarran Auto Body in Sparks, Nev., loves that he no longer has to call a glass shop. Thanks to induction heat, Wientjes is able to do all of the glass work that comes into his shop.

Wientjes says the Inductor Pro-Max is his go-to glass removal tool and he’s able to use it on 80 percent of the vehicles that come in.

Induction heat can remove glass externally without the aid of knives or wires. The system makes it nearly impossible to damage the glass or the molding.

CUT REPAIR TIME SIGNIFICANTLY The first time Gough tried to remove glass with induction heat was on a Chevy Impala hail job. He had to remove all of the windows to paint the roof. Typically, it would 92

Tom Gough, president Induction Innovations

have taken him two hours to remove and reinstall each window. With induction heating, it took about three-and-a-half minutes to remove each window and another 10 minutes to prep and put the window back in.

Gough says that the time savings will make customers and insurance companies happier. Induction heat products will help shops turn around jobs quicker and eliminate downtime.

SAVE ON MATERIALS COSTS By using induction heat, shops will be able to salvage many of the parts that would normally have to be replaced with a traditional torch, which is Wientjes’ favorite feature of the Pro-Max. Gough explains that the induction field penetrates coatings such as paint and adhesives without affecting them. Once the magnetic field comes in contact with the metal surface, a sufficient amount of heat is generated to release the bonding properties of any coating. Because the adhesives aren’t damaged in the process, shops will save on the cost of rubber erase wheels, adhesive removal solvents, oxy/acetylene gas and a number of other supplies and materials.

A SAFER OPTION “I like the fact that it’s safer,” Wientjes says. “When you’re under a car with frozen suspension parts, the last thing you want is to be down there with a torch surrounded by oil.”

By using a high-frequency magnetic field, Induction Innovations eliminates the need for an open flame in the shop, which is both faster and safer than using a torch.

Gough says that the flameless heat from the Inductor can focus the heat without the possibility of burning nearby objects.

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MINI-DUCTOR® VENOM™ EXPERIENCE INVISIBLE HEAT® The Mini-Ductor® Venom™ releases metals from corrosion and thread lock compounds without the dangers of open flame. > Angled Design with Trigger > Two Year Warranty > Coil Twist Lock™ > User Controlled LED Switch

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CLEAN SANDING SYSTEM

A REVOLUTIONARY SANDING SYSTEM THE TOTAL AUTOMOTIVE SANDING SYSTEM FROM 3M AND FESTOOL COMBINES THE BEST ABRASIVES IN THE INDUSTRY WITH CUTTING-EDGE DUST EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGY In February, 3M, a global leader in abrasive technology with over 100 years of expertise, announced a collaboration with Festool, a leader in power tools and dust extraction technology, to bring the collision repair industry a system comprising of premium products from 3M and Festool — the Total Automotive Sanding System. The system not only make shops more efficient and profitable, it also creates a safer environment for technicians, says Todd Bailey, U.S. marketing manager, for 3M. YEARS IN THE MAKING 3M observed the dust extraction system trend overseas for several years. In the end, 3M decided that to create the best system possible, it needed to partner with a company that specialized in dust extraction technologies. Festool was at the top of the list.

“At 3M, we spend a tremendous amount of time studying the way collision repair shops operate today—and how they could operate better in the future,” Bailey says. “We continually look at process improvements, new standard operating procedures and new solutions for getting repairs done more quickly and efficiently without sacrificing quality.

“The new Total Automotive Sanding System is a reflection of that research and development, integrating our innovative Cubitron II abrasive products, advanced repair processes and new collaboration with Festool’s premium automotive power tools. This system is a great example of the shop of the future—with mobile workcenters, a focus on dust extraction and the ability to deliver an excellent repair—more productively, efficiently and cleaner than before.”

HOW IT WORKS The system’s mobile dust extractor collects dust as it is being made, creating a cleaner

environment for the technician and keeps the dust from landing on areas it shouldn’t. This reduces shops having to re-do jobs, which saves time and money.

Mike Packer, owner of Status Symbol Autobody in Colorado Springs, Colo., recently purchased five of the sanding systems for his shop.

“Everyone loves it,” Packer says. “It’s made the shop cleaner. We don’t have huge piles of dust on cars, shop equipment and the floor anymore.”

A LEADER IN ABRASIVES The Total Automotive Sanding System uses 3M’s top-tier abrasive, the Cubitron II, which cuts 30 percent faster and lasts up to twice as long as other premium abrasives on the market.

Packer says that his staff has told him that since using the system, they’ve noticed that the sandpaper lasts longer and cuts faster due to less loading of the abrasive.

A CUSTOMIZABLE SYSTEM Bailey says one of the best features of the Total Automotive Sanding System is that it is fully customizable. 3M’s representatives will come in and help shops set up the system exactly how a shop wants it. There are three different sets of the system designed for specific jobs in the collision repair process: body, paint prep, and paint finishing. Both the body and paint prep sets can be configured to be used either pneumatically or electrically. For shops that are interested in improving their energy efficiency, Bailey recommends the electric version of the sanding tools. There is potential for considerable reduction in energy consumption.

DUST EXTRACTION EXPERTS 3M is dedicated to making sure that its cus94

tomers have the most knowledgeable and proficient representatives possible—which is why the company sent its top collision repair experts through a week-long training program to learn how the Total Automotive Sanding System brings value to its customers.

IAS The pneumatic system uses a hose called an integrated air system (IAS). The IAS is an all-inone system that has a 360 rotation connection adaptor, which prevents tangling and makes the system less cumbersome than others on the market. The hose is also anti-static, so technicians don't have to worry about electrical shocks while they are using it.

IMPROVED HEALTH AND SAFETY Packer invested in the system primarily because of the health benefits for his staff and the environmentally-friendly aspects of the system.

OSHA and other agencies have strict policies regarding dust, and the Total Automotive Sanding System helps make those policies easier for shops to follow. The system helps keep airborne dust concentrations at a safe level and its mobile extractor has a full HEPA certification.

Bailey says that the filter dust bag within the system works as a self-cleaning bag, which is able to hold nearly its full capacity before it needs to be changed, which reduces the frequency of filter change-outs and cuts down on material costs. Besides that, the self-cleaning bag prevents dust particles from caking inside the bag which reduces suction.

The dust extraction units are HEPA-certified and therefore 99.97% of all the dust particles* are caught by the main filter within the unit for improved customer health and safety. * with 0.3 µm particle size

Less Dust. More Profit.

Introducing the Total Automotive Sanding System

Best-in-class 3M abrasives combined with premium Festool Automotive Systems power tools and dust extraction solutions. The result is one of the most effective and comprehensive surface preparation and finishing systems in the automotive collision repair industry. Designed to improve profitability, efficiency, health and safety.

Learn more at 3MCollision.com/TotalAutomotiveSandingSystem/FenderBender Š 2016 3M. All Rights Reserved. 3M is a Trademark of 3M Company.

PAINT COATINGS

A LEADER IN COLOR AND TRAINING PPG’S LATEST PRODUCT AND TRAINING OFFERINGS CREATE HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE SHOPS Continual improvement should be the goal of any business, says Tim Jones, PPG’s waterborne segment manager. PPG is dedicated to helping collision shops achieve that goal with the latest in paint technology and systems.

The company’s products, support and training offerings help collision repair businesses across the country enhance operations.

THE LATEST WATERBORNE PAINT TECHNOLOGY More than 10,000 collision centers in North America are using PPG’s waterborne basecoats, Jones says. These shops have seen outstanding color consistency and products that deliver high quality results without compromising performance.

“PPG’s waterborne is a productive basecoat because the consistency is outstanding,” Jones says.

Stirring paint can shorten the shelf life of the product when mechanical mixing systems are introduced. PPG uses anti-settle technology in its waterborne colors, making it unnecessary to stir the paint.

Another benefit of using a waterborne system over others is that solvent systems are geared more toward temperature ranges, which can cause variations in the outcome of the color and requires a spray card.

Waterborne does not, Jones says, which can reduce cycle time by 20 minutes.

A PRODUCTIVE PAINT SYSTEM PPG has primers that dry quickly and can be sanded in 20 minutes. Painters can spray a basecoat 10–15 minutes following primer application. PPG has designed its clearcoats to meet the specific application the user is trying to achieve.

“We have express clears allowing users to spray a very small area that can dry and buff in an hour. And our speed clears reduce the amount of timeand temperature that you have to bake.We also have production clearcoats thatdo even more panels— including overalls,”Jones says. In fact, PPG waterborne basecoat is part of a complete system of products engineered to work together for a total system solution.

THE SCIENCE OF COLOR MATCHING “PPG’s color leadership continues in both visual tools, as well as digital, electronic color retrieval,” says Beth Ramsey, global color marketing manager for PPG. “We have a growing database of over 2 million formulas and an expansive foundation of color information available to our customers.”

Early color identification is key for productive painters. PPG suggests using the RapidMatch X-5 spectrophotometer at the time of estimate. Twenty years ago, these tools were used only when a color was hard to find or the painter had no other recourse or solution, Ramsey says. Now, it’s an important tool before the vehicle even gets to the booth.

Painters are presented with a Match Rating of the best blendable match, texture information and available color box information to assist in ‘right first time’ color selection.

The user is given a green-light indicator when a match is presented back as blendable. This ‘Green Green Go’ experience solidifies PPG’s color leadership in the Refinish market.

SPECIALIZED TRAINING PPG has 16 training centers across North 96

America that provide customers the opportunity to participate in training in the classroom and in state-of-the-art shop environments. Randy Cremeans, director of refinish training, says the company is committed to focusing on their three pillars of Training.

• Our Facilities: PPG Business Development Centers have been updated to replicate any type of shop scenario that customers might encounter.

• Our People: “PPG is proud to say that our 31 trainers have an unmatched average of 34 years of industry experience.

These expert refinish instructors love what they do,” says Cremeans. “They excel in makingour classes interesting, educational and fun to attend.”

• Our Curriculum: PPG has over 100 different classes available ranging from product certification for the ever-popular Envirobase High Performance waterborne and Deltron product systems to custom restoration training, fleet and light industrial classes for commercial coatings. Classes are also available in Spanish and French.

ESTABLISHING LEAN PROCESSES PPG is dedicated to helping customers become more productive shops through improved processes. The company has training programs that cover all areas of the shop, says Cremeans. Specifically, the MVP Green Belt training program helps shops understand and implement lean strategies. The 3.5-day training program is centered on the practical application of Lean Six Sigma tailored for collision repair.

Fast and easy.

North America’s leading waterborne basecoat system.

There are numerous reasons why progressive collision centers move up to the ENVIROBASE® High Performance system. Spot-on color chips for “right the first time” matches. Anti-settle toners for mix accuracy and consistency. Easier blends with superior metallic control. Quick basecoat application and fast throughput clearcoats. Given these advantages, it makes sense that the Envirobase High Performance brand is the bestselling waterborne basecoat system in North America.

ENGINEERED

FOR EXCELLENCE

Follow us online:

www.ppgrefinish.com

©2016 PPG Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

The PPG Logo and Envirobase are registered trademarks of PPG Industries Ohio, Inc.

SPRAY GUN

DESIGNED FOR EFFICIENCY, FUNCTIONALITY AND DURABILITY WITH SATA EQUIPMENT, SHOPS RECEIVE REPEATABLE RESULTS THAT SAVE YOUR SHOP TIME, MATERIALS AND MONEY Efficiency is created through repeatable processes that lead to predictable outcomes. Deviations are where issues arise.

SATA aims to eliminate the variables that hinder your shop, says Tony Larimer, director of sales and marketing for DanAm Company, an independent importer for SATA. No two shops are the same, and painting conditions can vary greatly from region to region, climate to climate—sometimes, even paint booth to paint booth.

But with the all-new SATAjet 5000 B spray gun, combined with the company’s RPS cup system, SATA has created a painting system as versatile as you are.

“What that means is that for painters that are in various climates and painters with different techniques—with gun dis-

tance being farther away or closer up— the SATAjet 5000 B is more versatile in distance and pressures than any guns in the past,” Larimer says.

Let’s start with the gun itself: The ultimate innovation in the SATAjet 5000 B’s design is the fluid tip, aircap and needle that allows for better atomization of the paint: Droplets are finer and closer together than ever before; this means faster coverage with less paint.

“The film builds faster,” Larimer says.

“So, it speeds up dry times because it leaves no gaps between the droplets where solvent or water can lay. And it squeezes it out quicker to give you a quicker flash-off time between coats and a faster curing process.”

Productivity will increase, cycle times will drop, and your shop will save on materials.

“It gives you a more perfect spray result and cuts costs for the shop,” Larimer adds.

“Each job becomes more profitable.”

The gun is designed for use with any of today’s paint products. Whether you use National Rule solvent, Low VOC solvent or waterborne the SATAjet 5000 B and all other SATA guns are designed for ultimate durability and function. SATA engineers streamlined the components for both the exterior and interior of the guns, creating a very well balanced handle, and a shorter material passage for the paint to travel.

It allows for less paint being lost with each spray process and easier cleaning afterward.

The smaller amount of paint mixed, is again a large advantage.

“It also has a half-turn fan control so it adjusts easily, but not too quickly,” Larimer says. “You can control the fan with your thumb, or with one finger, if you need to make changes to your fan pattern. It’s very simple, and very easy to do.”

98

SATA’s other spray gun options include the SATAminijet 4400 B in both HVLP and RP. Both versions offer exceptional transfer efficiency, and allow you to do repairs from small panels, to spot repairs with minimal product consumption. Recent demonstrations allowed for the use of the SATAminijet 4400 B HVLP with a 1.4 SR nozzle set to do a priming application on a door skin which was the size of two 8 ½ by 11” sheets of paper. To do this with 3 coats of primer, and a dry film of 6 mils we only consumed 1 ounce of primer surfacer.

The SATAminijet 4400 B is also exceptional for painting small spots, to small panels with a 1.2 SR nozzle size that works with a majority of topcoat or sealer materials.

With SR nozzles from 0.8 SR to 1.4SR the HVLP version is a workhorse in any shop.

The SATAjet 100 BF also comes in both HVLP and RP models. The HVLP is primarily used for primer surfacer materials. Maximum build, minimal overspray and fine droplets, allow this type of material to be applied and sanded in just one step, even up to 600 grit sandpaper.

Cutting material consumption, and sanding labor time and materials makes this gun a very fast return on investment, and helps the shops make money on their materials. The RP version is amazing for sealer application. It lays down sealer like a very smooth topcoat, and cuts the amount of overspray and product amount used dramatically.

The entire SATA gun range works in harmony with the SATA RPS cups to offer fast working speed and consistent results, that make every repair predictable in product cost and appearance. If you have not yet used the latest in SATA equipment ask your local paint supplier and SATA distributor today for a demonstration.

SATAjet®5000 B AS VERSATILE AS YOU Whatever you wish to paint: Our new high performance spray gun is exactly what you need. Regardless which object, climate, inlet pressure or application distance - the SATAjet 5000 B sets new standards in terms of versatility

• Fast working speed • Flexible gun distance • Flexible air pressure (10-29 psi) • Exceptionally high transfer efficiency • Durable for solvent or waterborne paint • Fast coverage & film build using less paint For further information: www.satausa.com/SATAjet5000B

Nozzle size

HVLP

1.0

–

1.2

WSB

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.7

1.9

2.2

RP

1.0

1.1

1.2

1.2 W

1.3

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.5

210732

–

Standard

with QCC RPS cups 0.3 l, 0.6 l, 0.9 l, 1 ea.

DIGITAL

with QCC RPS cups 0.3 l, 0.6 l, 0.9 l, 1 ea.

– 211094

210740 210757 210765 210799 210823 210831 210849 210856

215640 209858 209866 209874 209882 209890 209908 209916 –

–

211110 211128 211136 211151 211193 211201 211219

–

210138 210146 210153 210161 210179 210187 210195 210203 210211

–

The exclusive independent distributor of SATA products in the US and Puerto Rico Phone: 800-533-8016 E-mail: satajet@satausa.com www.satausa.com

RP version approved by SCAQMD and EPA, meets rule 40, part 63, HHHHHH SATA, SATAjet and/or other SATA products referenced herein are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SATA GmbH & Co. KG in the U.S. and/or other countries.

AIR FILTRATION AND AIRLINES

CLEAN AIR AND PEACE OF MIND THE SATA AIR FILTRATION SYSTEM, TOGETHER WITH THE DAN-AM AIR ALUMINUM PIPE SYSTEM, IS EFFICIENT, EASY TO USE AND WILL IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AND CLEANLINESS FOR BOTH BREATHING AND SPRAYING AIR

Picture this scenario: Looking for more efficiency in your repair process, you decide that jobs would flow better through the shop if you had your filtration system moved across the floor, some 100 feet or so away.

This requires considerable effort, energy and time to move the filtration, says Brad Gravenhof, a manager with Dan-Am Company, the independent distributor of SATA Spray Equipment in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. It would require redoing your shop’s air filtration system, likely involving the hiring of specialists to re-run the airlines through your shop—for each one of your paint booths.

“Not only is it going to cost you hundreds of dollars that includes taking the time to outsource that work,” Gravenhof explains, “but it’s simply not going to work as well as Dan-Am Air. There are always going to be issues with your traditional black pipe, copper, and, especially, PVC systems.”

The solution, Gravenhof says, is SATA’s advanced air filtration system and Dan-Am Air Aluminum Airline System.

Between the technology of its three-stage filter and the modular design of Dan-Am Air’s aluminum airlines, the SATA system is reusable and easily adaptable to any space, not only ensuring safe, clean air for your team but also increasing your shop’s efficiency and improving your business’s bottom line.

THE THREE-STAGE FILTRATION SATA’s filters come in two sizes, which can flow from 70 or 129 cfm at 90psi—an exceptional amount of air for one line, Gravenhof says, generally enough to accommodate two booths on a single filter.

“If you’re a shop with two booths, now you have half as many filters to take care of, half as many cartridges to buy,” he says.

The three-stage filtration is simple: The first stage is the water separator, removing the moisture from the air; next is the particle stage; and, finally, there is the activated charcoal stage.

Following that process, and with no CO detected, the filter provides Grade D breathable air.

DAN-AM AIR’S HIGH-QUALITY MATERIALS The system’s airlines are made of powdercoated, aircraft-grade aluminum.

Aluminum’s biggest advantage? No corrosion, lightweight, and guaranteed not to leak.

“So, think about it: Your air leaves the compressor and is immediately in danger of corrosion and oil issues with black pipe. Copper is expensive and requires an open flame to install, and PVC is downright dangerous, not to mention illegal. Dan-Am Air and SATA filtration solves every one of those issues,” Gravenhof says. “Dan-Am Air and SATA just make sense. This powder-coated aluminum Dan-Am Air isn’t going to corrode. The airlines are going to stay perfectly clean.”

MODULAR DESIGN Another major advantage of aluminum is that it’s lightweight, which helped Dan-Am Air create a versatile airline system that has a modular design, allowing for greater flexibility and versatility to adapt to any shop layout.

The Dan-Am team can help with layout 100

design for larger applications, and there are prepackaged “plug-and-play” kits available, Gravenhof says. But the best part of the system is how simple it can be to install yourself.

The system has a push-to-connect design in its triple-sealed fittings. There are no “tightening” tools needed. Simply cut the pipe to the right length, clean the edges and press it into the fittings for immediate pressurization. The system is so light that one person can easily carry a 20-foot length of pipe, even on a ladder or lift.

“Compared to the conventional black pipe airlines, which are most typical, ours is reusable,” he says. “You can put a system up, and take it down and put it back together very easily. It’s reusable, very modular and can be easily added on to. We’ve had instances where shops will take their airline with them, in cases where they changed locations.”

CREATING EFFICIENCY, SAVING MONEY The airlines, and fittings, have what Gravenhof refers to as a “smooth, full-bore” design, where there are no restrictions. The air flows easily and quickly through with no leaks or contaminations.

“Both black pipe and copper, over time, tend to leak,” he says. “You might have 12 tiny leaks, but it causes your compressor to run that much more often. The air will always find the path of least resistance—if it wants to get out, it will get out. That costs money.”

“The cost of a reusable and versatile system like Dan-Am Air’s will pay off quickly,” Gravenhof says. “It’s a simple, extremely effective system with a do-it-yourself installation. It saves time. It saves energy. It saves money.”

“More than anything, it’s going to be one less thing you have to worry about, allowing you to concentrate on making money,” Gravenhof says.

Advanced Compressed Air Piping System for Clean Dry Compressed Air

No threading - No soldering

Easy to install yourself Use for new installation, or to expand or modify your current system

Measure & Cut ➤ Push to Connect

DanAm Air's benefits: • • • • •

Energy efficient Lower installation costs Push-to-connect technology Immediate pressurization Removable and reusable

• • • • •

Modular design No corrosion Leak-free guarantee Full bore design 1/2” to 6” pipe sizes

*SAVINGS of 30-50%

compared to steel or copper installation!

Check the savings chart at www.DanAmAir.com

For a FREE quote call: 800-533-8016 Dan-Am Co.® • One Sata Drive • Spring Valley, MN 55975

*Savings may vary

PAINT BOOTH

A SHOP’S DREAM BOOTH GFS ADVANCED SPRAY BOOTH TECHNOLOGY CREATES PAINT BOOTHS THAT ARE MORE EFFICIENT FOR THE PAINTER AND SAVE SHOPS MONEY Paint booths are a costly investment for shops, so it pays to work with a company that has a history of excellence.

Global Finishing Solutions (GFS) has a heritage that goes back over 130 years, says Brandon Lowder, vice president of auto refinish sales for GFS. And the years of experience in the industry have allowed the company to perfect its booth.

Being a vertical manufacturer, the components in all of GFS’ booths are built or assembled within its own factory, ensuring each booth meets its high quality standards. Lowder says that customers of GFS can rely on the company for lifelong support and service through the company’s unmatched technical support department, project management team and extensive distribution network.

FLOOR TRACK LEVELING SYSTEM Most paint booths require a perfectly level floor for installation. That’s not an easy find in most shops, so GFS uses an innovative floor track leveling system that allows the booth to be installed with a tilt as large as 1 5⁄8 inches without shimming the floors.

INNOVATIVE CONTROLS GFS offers two different platform options for its controls: Engage and LOGIC. Both platforms allow painters to see the spray temperature, booth balance, what mode the booth is in, and information on airflow. Another feature that sets GFS apart is that the controls will alert painters when there is an issue through a self-diagnostic feature.

SUPERIOR DISTRIBUTOR SERVICE NETWORK “The single biggest difference between us and our competitors is our distribution and service network and our support after the sale,” Lowder says. GFS has the largest distribution network in North America and offers service in each state, something that isn’t found with its competitors.

DURABLE CONSTRUCTION GFS paint booths are constructed to last.

All of the steel used in the booth is premium cold rolled steel that has been galvanized, primed, and coated with a polyester top coat, which Lowder says guarantees the booths will never peel, flake or corrode.

All of the doors in GFS’ paint booths have a 14-inch steel frame with heavy hinges. The hinges were made with a brass washer in between, which allows the hinges to be rebuilt every few years instead of spending additional money to replace them, as would be the case with other booths.

speed, temperature, and advanced air tower can be adjusted and then saved in one of three profiles. A cost-effective feature for shops with the flash mode is it allows 50 percent of the air to be recirculated, which reduces utility costs. Another way LOGIC controls cut down on utilities is the economy mode. With economy mode, the paint booth senses when paint air is being used.

When it’s not being used, the paint booth automatically runs on idle and restarts again when the painter is ready.

AMPLIFIED BOOTH LIGHTING All of GFS' paint booths use color correcting florescent lighting that use at least 100 lm/w. The booths are designed with the painter in mind and have multiple different lights that are strategically placed in the ceiling and in the side wall to offer the best view possible, Lowder says.

CONTROLLED AIRFLOW CEILING Through the Controlled Airflow Ceiling, two different spray zones are created. The different zones help prevent contamination, Lowder explains. The vehicle is kept in the main airflow zone and two other zones are created against the outer wall, which form a barrier between the painter and the vehicle.

The LOGIC 3 and LOGIC 4 control panels have all of the features that the Engage control panel has, but offer even more information. From a painter’s aspect, the LOGIC control panels offer the most visual information of any control panel on the market, Lowder says. Smart Flash and Smart Cure are available exclusively in the LOGIC controls. This technology allows users the options of setting three different profiles when they are flashing or curing, making it easier for painters when they have vehicles that call for different temperatures. The air 102

LOW MAINTENANCE BOOTH BALANCING Most companies use dampeners in paint booths. Not GFS. According to Lowder, GFS uses a variable frequency drive (VFD) accelerator and brake.

“We read booth pressure and it can be sped up or slowed down to get the booth balanced for optimal painting,” Lowder says. “We do it because it’s accurate and reacts quickly. A dampener can take several seconds; the VFD adjusts airflow every two-tenths of a second.”

DESIGNED FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE & EFFICIENCY

ULTRA® PAINT BOOTHS Renowned since 1999, GFS Ultra® paint booths offer unrivaled quality and performance. Unlike any other paint booths in the marketplace, Ultra® booths include advanced features such as a full-ceiling plenum, GFS’ exclusive Controlled Airflow Ceiling, floor track leveling and intuitive controls for superior airflow, lighting and energy efficiency. Available in four booth models with multiple options, you’re sure to find an Ultra® booth to meet your shop’s budget and production needs.

globalfinishing.com

| 877-658-7900

See us at SEMA 2016, booth #11153

PAINT CUPS

MIXING, PAINTING AND STORAGE—ALL IN ONE SATA’S RPS CUPS SPEED UP BODY SHOPS’ PRODUCTIVITY AND IMPROVE COLOR MATCHING When it comes to quality paint products, SATA sets the standard for the industry.

The refined, retooled and revitalized SATA painting system does just that, starting with the SATA Rapid Penetration System (RPS) Single Use Cups.

The SATA RPS cups are disposable and have a unique venting system that plays into the efficiency of the overall SATA system. The vents allow for an even flow rate through the cup—so, whether the cup is entirely full, half full, or just has a couple ounces in it, the flow rate will stay the same.

“It guarantees an even color match and film build throughout the paint job,” said SATA Dan-Am Co. Director of Sales and Marketing Tony Larimer. “What that means for a shop is that, if a painter is mixing material, he might only need two ounces. He can mix just what he needs, get the same results and you don’t have the

extra material that will go to waste.

“You mix 100 percent of what you need, and 100 percent will come out of the spray gun.”

Larimer says that SATA was the first company to develop the “Original” single use cup with a “true vented system,” which works similarly to the company’s original gravity-feed cups that have been used in shops since 1925. Regarding RPS cups, “As known from our proven gravity flow cup principle, in use for several years, at any given point in time we have a constant material flow, our fan pattern stays constant, therefore maintaining constant, perfect color match,” Larimer says.

The cups can be used for mixing, spraying and, when the job is complete, storage.

For SATA spray gun users there’s no need to buy additional mixing cups or cans—and the cups require no adapters. They mount directly to SATA spray guns.

104

The RPS cups also have the built-in flexibility of the cup lid “neck” which allows painters to tilt the cups forward or side to side to spray at many different angles, on parts, rocker panels, and bumper covers.

This flexibility assists in making the RPS a great solution for more difficult paint jobs.

Each case of SATA RPS includes the cups, strainers of your choice and lids. No additional accessories are needed. Each time you use a new RPS cup, you have a clean sterile cup that does not deliver accidental contamination from previous jobs into your paint work.

SATA also has a version of the SATA RPS cups for UV coatings. The cup, lid and vent caps are completely black, not allowing light to cause the product to react in the cup. Painters or body techs who prime or paint using UV coatings can leave this in the cup all day, without having to mix small amounts throughout the day. You can get the UV version SATA RPS cups in the 0.6 liter size, and these can be used in all SATA guns from the SATAminijet 4400 B HVLP or RP, the SATAjet 100 BF HVLP or RP, or any of our topcoat versions that utilize QCC cups, from the SATAjet 2000, 3000, 4000 and the latest SATAjet 5000 B. So whichever SATA gun you spray UV products with, the SATA RPS UV cups will work.

“When used together with SATA guns you can combine all the areas in which you’re saving on materials—the shorter fluid passage inside the SATA guns, no threads for a smooth easier-to-clean fluid passage, the better atomization of the spray, the cups allowing you to mix and spray the correct amount of material—the entire system will save your shop money and make you more profitable,” Larimer says. “There’s less cleaning, less waste, and less time spent doing things other than spraying. It’s about efficiency, function and profitability.”

SPRAY ON BEDLINER

A BEDLINER SYSTEM FOR EVERY BUDGET ULTIMATE LININGS’ SPRAY-ON BEDLINER EQUIPMENT CAN CREATE AN ADDITIONAL PROFIT CENTER FOR ANY SHOP application that reduces weight by 50 percent.

This leads to better fuel economy, which will help meet the new CAFE standards.

For shops that already have an area to do spray-on bedliners, an investment as little as $750 in spray-on bedliner material from Ultimate Linings can earn that shop an additional $48,000 in revenue per year, says John Jamroz, VP of Sales and Marketing.

That number may seem impossible, but with the different options and support that Ultimate Linings provides, the additional profit center is very much within reach.

ULTIMATE LININGS Ultimate Linings has been providing quality bedliner material for over 30 years. Jamroz says the chemical company has two fulltime labs spread across five manufacturing plants. It has seven chemists (two with Ph.D.s) on staff full time to develop the high-quality chemicals that have helped the company build OE relationships and increase customer satisfaction.

OEM CERTIFIED Jamroz says Ultimate Linings chemicals have been used on more vehicles in the past five years than those of any other bediner company. Ultimate Linings is also the only company of its kind approved by GM, Toyota, Ram Truck, and Ford. Jamroz says that Ultimate Linings has a zero warranty rate for well-known OEs, including Ford, which makes the company stand out from a customer service standpoint.

SPRAY-ON BEDLINER BENEFITS Customers prefer spray-on bedliners to drop-in bedliners, Jamroz says, which makes investing in spray-on equipment the smart choice. Spray-on options are also lighter in weight and don’t rust or corrode.

Plus, they are repairable, which creates more jobs for collision repair shops.

Many shops do not provide spray-on bedliner services, which means they have to send the work elsewhere every time a vehicle comes in and needs to be sprayed. By sending vehicles out, the shop is missing out on profit and increasing the odds that the car will be damaged off site, explains Jamroz.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY All of the chemicals used by Ultimate Linings are environmentally friendly and 100 percent solid, which means shops don’t have to worry about VOCs. Jamroz says that one of the advantages to this is that shops do not need to invest in a full paint booth to comply with regulations, allowing them to avoid one of the costliest investments a collision repair business can make. Instead, shops can use a less expensive, smaller booth.

CAFE STANDARDS Ultimate Linings is invested in keeping up with the growing demands of the auto industry, which is why the company has developed a new product, Kolor Guard 8663, a thinner 106

OPTIONS Ultimate Linings provides systems to meet every budget, from the startup Qwikliner Dual Cartridge Spray Gun to high-volume, high-pressure equipment. And Jamroz says Ultimate Linings will gladly work with shops that are interested in investing in spray-on liners to help decide what the best option would be. The company also offers three different grades of chemical to choose from, so if shops want a different feel to the bedliner, Ultimate Linings can provide that.

Investing in bedliner equipment can sound overwhelming. However, because the product is 100 percent solid, shops can use a spray booth, which is a less expensive option than a paint booth. Ultimate Linings will even get in touch with spray booth companies to help its customers find the best deal.

WORTH THE COST Ultimate Linings is able to sell its products for less because it does not have a franchise fee, Jamroz says. The company also has one of the largest inventories of parts, which means that customers that make a larger purchase can get a discount.

Jamroz says there’s a simple breakdown that explains how investing in spray-on bedliners can help shops turn an additional profit.

Shops that are able to spray tailgates can charge $100–$125 for work that will only set the shop back $25. If a shop already has a booth to spray in, a $750 investment will set that shop up with the cartridge system. For $125, shops can purchase chemicals and charge $325 for a bedliner job, which turns a $200 profit. If a shop does 20 bedliner jobs per month, that ends up being a profit of $48,000 annually.

Bed-Liner Solutions for Every Budget

PROFITABLE SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR SHOP AMERICAN MADE â&#x20AC;&#x201C; LONG LASTING PROTECTION EXCLUSIVE PARTNERSHIPS WITH OE MANUFACTURERS THE BEST CHEMICAL PERFORMANCE UL AD 6000 HIGH PRESSURE SYTSTEM

TOP 20 GRACO DISTRIBUTOR

QWIKLINER DUAL CARTRIDGE SYSTEM

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EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

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TECHNICAL TRAINING

INDUSTRY-RECOGNIZED TRAINING I-CAR® OFFERS TRAINING DEVELOPED BY INDUSTRY EXPERTS TO MEET THE EVER-CHANGING NEEDS OF THE AFTERMARKET Mike Loy, owner of Mike Loy’s Collision in Lewisburg, Ohio, has held I-CAR® Gold Class® status for 20 years and has seen the value of I-CAR’s training firsthand. Loy says that since becoming a Gold Class shop in 1992, the business has seen improved cycle time every year.

The largest benefit to training with I-CAR, Loy says, is the confidence that comes with it.

“With the training, we know that we are delivering a safe, quality vehicle,” Loy says.

“We stand behind our repairs and that gives our customers peace of mind.”

And Loy’s shop isn’t alone. In 2012, I-CAR conducted a study to prove the value of its training. To determine the correlation of training to business performance, I-CAR offered 28 shops that were not training on a regular basis the opportunity to train to earn I-CAR Gold Class status. All of the shops accepted and at the end of the training, the results proved that it was the right decision.

Over three years, performance data was collected from each of the shops as they progressed through the I-CAR program. By the end of the study, the shops, on average, saw: • Cycle time improve by 14.4 percent • Touch time improve by 33.8 percent • Supplement frequency reduced by 11 percent • Overall customer satisfaction increased by 5 percent

BY THE INDUSTRY, FOR THE INDUSTRY According to Nick Notte, the director of business development at I-CAR, the difference between I-CAR training and all other industry training programs is the fact that it’s built “by the industry, for the industry.” I-CAR involves all aspects of the industry when creating its curriculum to ensure that it does everything it can to educate on a complete, safe and quality repair.

“We involve the industry in creating our

training via our DACUM (designing a curriculum) process,” Notte says. “Most I-CAR instructors also work in the industry. They are all technical experts and see the significant changes in vehicle technology every day.

Utilizing information from all of our industry stakeholders, I-CAR knows what it takes to fix that car.”

Take Loy as an example. He has been involved in I-CAR since 1989 (Gold Class since 1992) and has seen the curriculum evolve over the years to meet the changing needs of the industry.

“The information is more relevant now than ever before,” Loy says. “There’s more in-depth communication and ties with the OEMs.” That’s because the manufacturers stand behind I-CAR training. Sixteen major OEMs require shops to attend some type of I-CAR training in order to become part of their respective repair programs.

When developing its training, I-CAR gathers information from technicians in the industry with the specific job roles to learn what skills are needed and what traits he or she must possess to do the job well. I-CAR then brings its team in to develop the curriculum.

It considers which method of delivering the content would be best. I-CAR offers its training through live (some hands-on), virtual and online courses. After the curriculum is developed, a pilot program is put together. I-CAR then gathers feedback from all segments of the industry and fine tunes the program.

PURPOSEFUL TRAINING In 2009, Notte was working as president of Sterling Autobody Centers when he was approached by I-CAR to participate in the Professional Development Program™ (PDP). When Notte saw how I-CAR had designed its curriculum, he was thrilled to see there was finally 108

Mike Loy’s Collision, Inc. received the Russ Verona Memorial Award for the collision repair business of the year from I-CAR in 2015. From left to right: John Van Alstyne, Joe Laurentino, Mike Loy and Jeff Silver

a program that set a clear training and career path for specific roles across the industry.

The PDP, an integral part of I-CAR’s curriculum, is designed specifically for different roles in the industry. Through the PDP, a person can choose the knowledge area he or she desires, and follow the PDP through the course outline and complete all of the necessary requirements. Also available through I-CAR is its Welding Training & Certification™ program, as well as recently introduced hands-on skills development courses that act as a combination of both theory and applied skills training, which is offered in both MIG brazing and rivet bonding training. Even more hands-on training is in development at this time.

MEASURABLE RESULTS Notte understands that training costs money, and sending staff to training takes time out of an already-packed schedule. But I-CAR has found a way to show that the investment pays off. I-CAR has developed a value of training benefits calculator which takes into consideration all of the factors that go into the investment and calculates and individual shop’s return on investment.

Notte gives an example of a shop with six technicians that generates an annual revenue of $900,000. I-CAR training teaches technicians how to work more effectively, move large vehicles more efficiently through the shop, which will generate an incremental revenue increase. It can also result in a higher level of profitability. In that situation, Notte says that just from becoming a Gold Class shop, a conservative estimate would be that this shop would generate $1.03 million each year after the training. For each of those six technicians, at a marginal commission rate of 35 percent, each would take home an extra $600 per month.

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