Page 57 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

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JUDGE POWELL
Darren has been able to focus
on improving and developing his business, including a total revamp
of the work areas, re-assessing processes and procedures to minimise that all important key to key time. Darren’s business doesn’t have a post code but
I’m sure he has the whole street.
U
With the constant addition of new work areas and always plenty of work, while the shop was functional it didn’t really gel before in terms of production flow and the panel shop layout was slightly awkward. Not any more. Hol- mes has turned the strip fit and panel workshops around and what a differ- ence this has made.
The other big difference is having the rapid shop which takes all of the small jobs totally off site. The panel shop is just for heavy hits and not surprisingly in Toowoomba there are a lot of both heavy hits and 4WDs so two additional Car-0-Liner benches have been installed and they have two Car-O-Tronics on the go. There’s also a mechanical section – Holmes does all its own air-condition- ing, tyres, wheel repairs, windscreens.
Next door is the strip refit. One side is strip and one is refit. Holmes has in- vested heavily in new equipment to in- crease efficiency and improve cycle times and to make life easier for the crew, like the scissor lifts in each of the refit bays so the cars can be raised to a comfortable working height.
One employee is solely responsible for making sure the cars are in the right bays and for bringing the parts trollies to that bay so the technicians don’t need to wan- der around – the work is brought to them.
The parts department is vast, you could run a decent paint and panel shop inside it. Because it takes at least four days to get parts delivered they need a lot of space for storage as they order parts a week or two in advance to en- sure everything is onsite when the car comes in. All the way up to the ceiling are stock parts, Holmes still buys cars and recycles the parts which he finds very profitable. Next to the parts is a large detailing bay. There’s a a holding bay for tow-ins and cars that are waiting to go into the workshop.
The top yard is for cars in between the paint shop and the panel shop.
The paintshop has three booths, a
very clean mixing room consider-
ing the volume. Then there’s yet an- other holding yard for problem cars – for instance the parts haven’t come in – the walls of the yards are stacked with UTE trays.
OTHER PAGE: Holmes express shop.
TOP LEFT: The parts department is bigger than some metro shops.
TOP RIGHT: Reanna McGreedy is a qualified panel beater and estimator.
LEFT: Darren Holmes outside the main building.
Holmes employs 10 apprentices and three school-based apprentices. There’s a keen emphasis on training and they are ever so nearly I-CAR Gold but it’s difficult which such a large team.
The weekly target is 75 cars which is often achieved despite the increased ca- pacity for heavy structural work. Holmes has a structured management team that meets weekly and there’s a daily budget that they know they have to achieve.
Holmes has big plans for the future: “There’s a massive amount of oppor- tunity in this business,” he says, and he is clearly taking those opportuni- ties in his stride.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS