Page 27 - Australasian Paint & Panel Magazine Jan-Feb 21

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fitted out with quality booths, prep bays and panel bays. This is the only way to satisfy the volumes of cata- strophic storms.
Now the company has invested in these permanent locations they are look- ing at diversification options for the qui- et times after hail work is completed. They have a vast array of equipment – all portable of course – which allows them to complete all their repairs in- house in metro areas.
The four hail repair companies on contract with IAG which includes Smart Repair Australia, all work politely to- gether if need be. They are allocated work evenly by the insurers, to meet their customer’s needs.
Cross many years ago pioneered a drive through camera vehicle check in system called DAVE (digital audio ve- hicle environment) to speed up the es- timating process. That is just about to be superseded by half a million-dollar state of the art hail scanner that the company has brought over from Cana- da which counts dents using a mixture of photos and artificial intelligence. The machine can identify damage and the scale of damage and therefore what insurance repair category the car be- longs to, hugely speeding up assess- ments. It is more accurate than the hu- man eye and scans the car in 3-5 seconds, before mapping the repair
process. There is still some tweaking to do to suit Australian procedures be- fore it is deployed, in terms of ‘Austral- ianising’ the system. The Canberra storm was the first opportunity to use it, but the damage was too severe as there were so many panel replace- ments needed.
After spending many years travelling and growing rapidly, Cross decided to settle down and to create a new image and culture for his company and for the industry. Three years ago, the now General Manager Greg Elliott was watching hail damaging his car in the driveway and called Cross to let him know. Cross offered Elliott the job of
managing the Bayswater centre and El- liott called his friend Omar Dean, who took the deputy manager position. The duo and their 100-strong team across two sites repaired 2500 vehicles in nine and a half months.
Elliott is passionate about the busi- ness and has solid plans for the compa- ny and for PDR as an industry. He is fo- cused on bringing in young talent to an industry that thrives on changes and challenges. He has a strong talent for shop layout, desiring to achieve the best workflow and repair quality.
Given the increase in catastrophic storm damage the company looks well set to enter a new growth phase.
ABOVE: From left: Mike Cross with on of his techs Sam Matairakula.
LEFT: Expert technicians use the latest methods and equipment.
OPPOSITE PAGE: One of the company’s static sites at Baywater North in Victoria.
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