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Industry Year in Review—A Month-by-Month Look at the Most Interesting Collision News of 2012 by John Yoswick
A lot happens in the collision repair industry, so trying to compile it all into a single year-end review is a challenge. But here’s our look at what we saw as among the most important or just plain interesting and memorable news item, event or quote from each of the last 12 months.
January State Farm’s George Avery announced that his company is testing the electronic parts ordering system “PartsTrader” with two collision repair
businesses. He declined to identify the shops, saying that it is too early in the testing “to put those folks under the microscope and ask, ‘What do you think of the new system?’” Lots of shops have since voiced what they think of the system. By the George Avery end of the year, the program was being rolled out to a fifth market (Chicago) for a total of about 600 Select Service shops. See Year in Review, Page 42
2012 Adding Up to a Record Year for MSO’s Shop Consolidation, All Major MSO’s Add Shops
Society of Collision Repair Specialists Takes a Look Back at 2012, by Aaron Schulenburg Executive Director, SCRS
2012 was an interesting year in the industry; a year that was filled with both new and pre-existing challenges for collision repair business owners. Business activity fluctuated from week to week causing market uncertainty, daily reports of consolidation filled the headlines of the trade press, insurance companies continued to develop ways to interject themselves into collision repair business management, and reports of technology development cast a long term question mark over the future of collision repair businesses. When concern and uncertainty occupy the marketplace,
businesses often look to the collective power of community to find information, lean on support from their peers, and collaboratively innovate solutions. As a trade association that has spent more than three decades solely dedicated to educate, inform and represent the collision repair professional in all aspects of the industry, 2012 was a remarkably busy year for the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS). In taking stock of the past year, I am confident that the entire staff and volunteer board of directors of SCRS are proud of the work that we embarked upon in each of the three areas of our mission. While the See SCRS Look Back at 2012, Page 8
Oklahoma Schools Teaching Collision Repair Proudly Represent the Sooner State by David M. Brown
Four Oklahoma collision repair programs exemplify the state’s commitment to quality vocational education.
FIX Auto USA Fix Auto USA added a franchise model to network membership in January 2011, and currently has 50 franchise locations operating in four states: See Record Year, Page 27
P.O. BOX 1516, CARLSBAD, CA 92018
CARSTAR CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts is North America’s largest Multi-Shop Operator (MSO) Network of independently owned collision repair facilities with more than 400 locations in 31 states and 10 Canadian provinces. CARSTAR recently expanded its business development team to accelerate the expansion of the
MSO network into two of the fastest growing regions—the Western U.S. and the Southeast. Shops that join CARSTAR pay a one-time joining fee ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, and then pay a percentage of sales each month, according to former CARSTAR CEO Dan Bailey. Typical monthly royalty fees are .75 percent to 2 percent of sales.
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The pace of acquisition of both smaller MSOs by larger ones and independent shops has substantially increased during 2012. The rate of acquisitions has been running at more than two shops per week for 2012.
VOL. 31 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 2013
Brittany Warner applies grit. Photo credit: Joe Payne, Tulsa Technology Center
Francis Tuttle Technology Center in the northwest Oklahoma City metro area offers a NATEF-accredited curriculum including basic and advanced training aligned with I-CAR advanced instruction for estimating damages, repair procedures and finishing vehicles. The school has offered the program since the early 1980s. “As the automotive collision repair industry is ongoing and everchanging, Francis Tuttle trains future technicians to be adaptable to new technologies, procedures and materials,” says Dennis Moore, instructor in the Automotive Collision Repair Technology program. Students may select one-year full time or two-year part-time programs. The student-instructor ratio is approximately 18:1. Students have the option of three majors: Refinishing, 645 hours; NonStructural Repair, 600 hours; or Structural Repair, 1,035 hours. They can earn multiple certifications and up to See Oklahoma Schools, Page 28
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