Page 25 - Australasian Paint & Panel Magazine Sep-Oct 2020

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SUBARU AND HOLDEN ARE MANDATING AMBRA SHOP GRADING AND ICAR GOLD FOR NETWORK REPAIRERS. MEANWHILE CAR CRAFT ENCOURAGES ITS NETWORK TO QUALIFY FOR BOTH.
AMBRA
SHOP GRADING
LEFT TO RIGHT: two pics Karratha Len Hollis
COULD IT BE THAT WE ARE FINALLY HEADING,
ever so slowly towards a national standard for body repair? Two Car Craft businesses have recently become graded.
Len Hollis Repair Facility’s Darren Myers (pictured right) knows the key to his suc- cess in achieving AMBRA Shop Grading is his commitment to training. He was one of the first shops in NSW to achieve I-CAR Gold Class and that investment in training has made his latest achievement a lot easier.
After becoming one of the early adopters to Car Craft’s move into the Sydney Metro mar- ket Myers knew that going for the industry approved accreditation was part of the deal. The Car Craft Group adopted the industry's national accreditation programme from in- ception and has made it part of its policies for the national network.
Myers said: "After meeting all the re- quirements, of which the training is prob- ably the longest part of the journey, we were eager to get the guys at MTA NSW through to carry out the audit and they made it pretty straight forward.
"The guys at Car Craft Group Head Office in Perth have been the drivers of this excel- lent program and assisted the early audit pro- cess by working with the local MTA to help them find a straight forward audit process and not over complicate things and this has been brought into our local MTA. Car Craft should be congratulated for their unwavering support of AMBRA Shop Grading and leading the way for the rest of industry," he said.
"I would encourage all bodyshop owners to take a good look at the AMBRA Shop
Grading and make contact with your local association and find out more about it, I’m certainly glad my association is across it, and I’m proud to be first here in NSW. I know my fellow NSW Car Craft members are not far behind me,” he said.
Brenton Daniel, Senior Division Man- ager at MTA NSW said: "We were thrilled to present Darren with the Level 4 Manu- facturer Approved Repairer AMBRA shop grading, the first business to achieve AMBRA grading in NSW.”
The grading has four levels for repair- ers at different structural levels from rap- id to manufacturer approved, with a level 5 for heavy vehicle repairs. The grading is open to any repair business regardless of whether they are members of MTA.
Car Craft Group member Karratha Panel and Paint has also achieved AM- BRA Shop Grading level two. Given their location in the northern region of WA, running a busy business where not only
IS SHOP GRADING FOR ME?
is it sometimes difficult to get skilled staff but they have also had to battle the odd cyclone or two, Jerome and Trudi Turnstead (above right) have still found time for AMBRA Shop Grading.
Being over 1500 kilometres away it is not a cheap trip to Perth to complete the welding certification or for a second trip to complete the five-plus hour blueprint- ing course required as part of the AM- BRA I-CAR training.
Car Craft General Manager Peter Mc- Mahon said: "The group is a great believ- er in the AMBRA Shop Grading and have for many years been at the forefront of the programme assisting in its promotion across the country and will continue to support AMBRA Shop Grading as the benchmark minimum standard for our industry. It has been great to see compa- nies such as Subaru and Holden’s Colli- sion Network including it as part of their accreditation which has seen other large automotive organisations start to look
at rolling it into their businesses."
If you already have Green Stamp, participate in I-CAR training, are OH&S compliant and have the correct equipment for the repairs you carry out, then the chances are you won’t have to do much to achieve Shop Grading at your desired level. You don’t have to be I-CAR Gold or an MTA member to be graded. If your local MTA doesn’t carrying out the shop grading you can ask an interstate MTA to do it. More information at: https://www.ambra. org.au/shop-grading
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