Page 108 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

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BEST SHOP AWARDS
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021 WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
BEST CORPORATE SHOP
MOTORONE BRENDALE
THE TEAM AT MOTORONE HAVE CREATED AN OUTSTANDING REPAIR FACILITY OFFERING AN INCREDIBLE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.
pended lighting over the workstations with extra bright ‘we have ways of making you talk’ lights over the buffing bays. There are seven fit up bays each with a speed lift In the panel shop down the right hand side are all the panel tech bays with a lift in every other bay and on the left is a pull- ing area. There’s also a heavy hit section with a newly installed Car-O-Liner.
There are seven prep bays to one side of the workshop and then in the middle, in front of the three spraybooths, is an- other parking area. They found if the preppers masked the car up they were staying too long in the prep bays, so now they have some who’s job is to QC the prep work, clean to the car down and then mask it up. While that’s happening someone comes around to do the colour matching and then the paint code goes on the screen. When that happens the painters know that it’s ready for them. There are three priming bays where one person primes all day long.
With the heavier work coming in they are still putting out 95 cars a week with 21 techs and four apprentices but in order to do this they have started longer days with split shifts that start at 5am and fin- ish at 5pm. Those booths are going hell for leather for around 12 hours straight.
Manager Simon Powell’s previous job was working with Robin Taylor at Axalta and in that role he learnt the ways of creat- ing an efficient shop and a motivated team which an important goal for Brendale.
What we saw on our zoom tour was a bunch of happy, hardworking techni- cians going about their tasks with pur- pose, so Powell’s aim to build a team en- vironment seems to have been achieved.
M
OTORONE IS A HUGE PURPOSE
scale – the car park is huge, the recep- tion is the size of some metro panel shops and the workshop is ginormous.
Outside are four blue estimating bays. Everything is well signposted for customers.
The concept for reception is to mimic a Qantas lounge and so they employed a designer who had actually worked on them. At its inception the shop was only repairing drivable cars and was sending out 100-105 cars per week. Some of these are one day repairs and the customers are given time slots to come in. The cus- tomer area has a chill out zone and work- stations everywhere however you want them – library style, high stool stations, enclosed booths you name it they have it. There’s an impressive looking coffee ma- chine and a kitchen area. The vast major- ity of people drop off their cars in the morning and pick them up in the after- noon so it’s very busy apart from a cou- ple of hours in the middle of the day.
The workshop is spread out in two ad- joining buildings. The whole shop has sus-
built repair facility – over 3600m2 – and is very impres- sive indeed. The Corporate Shop category is for those net- works which are funded by venture capi-
tal are publicly listed or insurer funded. MotorOne has seven sites spread over QLD, NSW and VIC. Brendale was the site we visited. Everything is on a large
ABOVE: Work stations anyway you want them. RIGHT: Part of the huge panel shop.
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