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Letter to the Editor

Idea Bank

Shop owners share information on what is working for them and for their businesses.

Spend a few minutes talking to another shop owner –whether across town or across the country – and you are likely to hear about some ideas they are trying or have long found successful. Here is a compilation of just some such tips and processes we have recently heard from shop owners.

Color-coded teams and parking

How do you keep track of 50 vehicles in for repairs each week when you have 36 employees, more than 30,000 square feet of shop space in several buildings, and a back lot that is larger than most shops’ entire footprint?

Signage and a color-coded team system at Kimball’s Auto Body in Tacoma, Washington actually make it easy to very quickly see a vehicle’s status and where it is headed next. Walking through the shop’s back lot, general manager Mark Dodd points out the signs designating various areas for vehicles that have just been towed in, those that are totals, those that are in the repair process, and those that are ready for delivery to the customer.

In-process vehicles (or those ready to begin repairs) are parked in color-coded lanes in the back lot with a magnetic hat on top of each. The color of the hat and parking lane correspond to one of three teams within the shop to which the job has been assigned.

“Each of our three estimators has their own team of body techs and painters,” Dodd said.

Explain the estimate – while it is being written

Like many shops, South County Collision Center in Morgan Hill, California has found a variety of ways to keep its name out in the community, including sponsoring local sports teams for kids, and the annual custom and classic car show organized by the Chamber of Commerce.

Shop owners Jason and Allison Bass said once those marketing efforts bring potential customers to the shop, a unique estimating arrangement helps them sell the job.

“We have a large monitor on the wall right behind where Allison sits to write the estimate, and the customer can watch that as she does the estimate and she can explain all of it,” Jason said. “Some people have a suspicious attitude about body shops. This helps show them it’s straight-forward.”

“People just love to watch the process and see the graphics showing the break-down of their car,” Allison said. “And man, woman or child, I explain everything, what ‘tint color’ is and what ‘restore corrosion protection’ is. It’s all right there for them.”

Simple tool helps show vehicle damage

Carroll Proctor of A.C. Proctor's Paint & Body, Inc., in Augusta, Georgia has used a simple tool to help make dents and other vehicle damage more visible in photos. Hold a piece of paper printed with perpendicular black bars next to a panel, and the distorted reflection of the bars on the vehicle can make the damage more clear.

You can create such a tool just by filling in every other column in a spreadsheet file. But Proctor, a national board member of the Automotive Service Association (ASA), also worked with the association to make a downloadable, ready-to-print file with such a tool available to ASA members from the members-only section of the ASA website : www.asashop.org.

Unique scheduling system works for shop

Julie Gair said that one of the best decisions she has made at Complete Collision Center in Federal Way, Wash-ington is a shift several years ago to four 10-hour work days.

“We’re still open five days a week, and actually have someone here an hour earlier and an hour later in the evening, which is great for customers,” said Gair, who operates the 7-employee family business with her brother, Ward MacPhail. “It seems much more productive, and my technicians enjoy having that extra day off.”

Under the shop’s scheduling system, one of its two body technicians is off on Mondays, the other on Tuesdays (the two rotate which day week-to-week). The shop’s two paint department employees similarly each take Friday or Monday off. Gair schedules in work accordingly.

“We used to have all the (customer cars) drop off here on Mondays,” she said. “Now with one tech gone on Mondays, we split up the drop-offs between Mondays and Tuesdays. With the extra hours you’re working, usually a 5-day repair can be done in 4 days. It’s made the work flow a lot nicer through the shop, too.”

Gair acknowledged that it’s not something that will work for every shop.

“My body techs are both paid flat rate but if a car has to go that the other technician took apart, they do not mind putting somebody else’s work together,” she said. “The painter will help the body men. That’s the only way this particular set-up will work. I’ve been here 27 years, and this is the only crew that could work together like that. They have the companionship and the skill level to make it work.”

Shop letter addresses parts issues

Although even the automakers in the worst financial shape indicate they have good parts availability and the fewest back-orders they have ever had, shops may see parts delays because of another struggling link in the parts supply chain: dealers. In May alone, GM and Chrysler terminated nearly 2,000 dealer franchise agreements.

John Arnold of Arnold's Body Shop in Davenport, Iowa recently sent a letter to more than a dozen insurance companies explaining how his shop is responding to parts availability issues. He said because of changes by its primary parts vendor, the shop's parts discount and return allowance have been cut. Many parts it used to receive in one or two days are now taking three or four, and the shop is now expected to pay for more parts upfront.

Because of this, he wrote to insurers, the 23-employee shop will be doing "extensive tear-down" of tow-in vehicles prior to damage reporting; will be scheduling drivable vehicles based on anticipated parts delivery; may be making more temporary repairs to make a drivable vehicle safe until parts arrive; and may be using more used and non-OEM parts. He also said insurers should expect to pay for more parts upfront, and for rental costs to increase.

Arnold said his father, who started the shop, is old enough to remember the auto parts shortages during World War II.

"I don't think it will be as significant as it was then, but my letter was to notify the people we deal with what's going on and get their expectations set,” he said. "If more shops and insurance companies understand what's going on, it's going to make it a lot easier for our joint customers.”

Added wall helps give shop space a tidy look

David Bourgeois said one reason he recently switched paint lines at Queen City Auto Rebuild, the 25-employee shop in Redmond, Washington that he owns and operates with his brother Steve, was the ideas and input from other shops that the paint company he chose could bring him.

Through the paint company-sponsored 20 group and consultants, Bourgeois said he has already put some of what he has garnered from interaction with others to work. As he laid out the 10,000-square-foot additional space the shop moved into this spring, for example, he implemented an idea he saw at a Nevada shop. He created “hidden” areas around the perimeter of the new shop space, using 6-foot-high “false walls” to give each technicians an area for toolboxes and parts. With the shorter walls painted to match the buildings interior walls, they virtually “disappear” when looking across the shop, but help give the larger space a more tidy, professional appearance.

Shop adopts complete “lean” make-over

Aaron Marshall, operations manager at Marshall Auto Body in Waukesha, Wisconsin said until about two years ago, his journeymen techs were handed a list of jobs for the week, with paint and completion deadlines and one or more apprentices to help. Otherwise they managed the process themselves.

Now under Marshall’s implementation of “lean,” the shop routinely has 20 percent fewer cars in the building, but is turning $200,000 in more work per year with the same number of production employees and 85 fewer overtime hours a month.

The shop’s dozen production employees are now assigned specific tasks. No job moves into production until all parts are in-house and insurance approvals obtained after the “repair planning” team has completely torn-down and “blueprinted” the job.

Jobs move from that team to the “heavy” department where any structural or welding takes place, or directly into the six-stage flow line. That line consists of body work (all body filler work for the 185-200 cars the shop repairs each month is done in one station), priming, prepping, spraying, re-assembling and clean-up. A new car enters that line every 80 minutes; if a technician in any of those stations won’t be ready to move their car forward in the 80 minutes, they use a red light to signal they need help from others to keep the line moving. Marshall has employees note how often (and why) they did not hit the 80 minute deadline.

“At the end of a 3- or 4-week period, we’ll look at the overall speed of our line, and at what areas are the most often not on time,” he said. “The area that has the lowest on-time delivery rate is the only one that needs to be addressed.”

Work on that area until it improves, Marshall suggested, and a new area will become the “new” weakest link in the chain, ready to be focused on and improved.   o

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