during the pandemic. Although net abrasives have been previously used in the industry, Gunderson said the 3M™ Cubitron II™ Net Abrasives use 3M’s patented precision-shaped grain material, which allows the solution to cut twice as fast and last twice as long as other net abrasives families. In addition, it captures more than 97% of the dust created when sanding in a shop. “With a shortage of technicians and competition for labor, employees want a clean, safe environment to work,” said Gunderson. “Our customers understand that dust extraction allows for a much cleaner body shop and paired with long-lasting abrasives, the productivity in sanding can also be met with fewer discs.” Supporting Body Shops Gunderson shared three distinctive ways 3M currently supports body shops: training and education, community and industry engagement, and increasing shop productivity and engagement. With training innovation facilities in more than 40 countries, Gun-
derson said helping educate the next generation of technicians is a priority to 3M. During the pandemic, 3M scaled up the virtual component of its 3M Collision Repair Academy.
and curriculum offerings for aspiring and current technicians. This includes opening an approximately 20,000-square foot training facility in St. Paul, MN. “Our employees could not be more thrilled,” said Gunderson. “Our team loves working with and advancing the collision trade, and having a brand-new facility with the right equipment and full-size classrooms will allow even more shops and technicians access to 3M™ Cubitron II™ Net Abrasives use 3M’s patented the teams of subject matter precision-shaped grain material experts at 3M.” 3M also takes pride in its com“Anyone can go online and get training on proper repair proce- munity and industry engagement dures,” said Gunderson. “That has efforts. For instance, the 3M team been very successful. Last year, we will participate in paint finish competitions at SkillsUSA in June in trained over 40,000 technicians.” Training is also available for Atlanta, GA. The St. Paul-based apvocational-technical schools and in- plication engineering team makes it cludes information about OEM stan- a priority to support bringing technidards and specifications. In addition, cians into the trade. Finally, similar to the medical 3M partners with I-CAR and OEMs to offer customized in-person and industry, Gunderson said collision virtual training. repairers often spend as much time An important goal for 3M in on the administration side of the 2022 is to advance their training business as on the operational side.
The third area of focus is around the support and digital tool integration for body shops. “Our goal is to simplify shops’ day-to-day administrative tasks,” he said. “A lot of materials that are used in repair shops don’t get accounted for on a repair order… some of these are critical, like structural adhesives.” To help shops account for materials, 3M introduced the 3M™ Collision Repair Materials Planner tool, known as CRiMP, about five years ago. The tool enables shops create a repair invoice to account for materials used on an order, reduce supplements and fully account for materials used during a collision repair job. “There are a number of different required materials on a repair order that shops tend to overlook when writing and submitting a repair order,” he said. Gunderson offered the example of using seam sealer on a vehicle. By using CRiMP, it allows a shop to specify how much of the tube was used during the repair and then creates an invoice attached to the repair See 3M Offering, Page 32
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