Page 65 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

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FOUNDED: 1960
SIZE: 5000m2
STAFF: 28
TYPE OF WORK: All
OTHER SERVICES: Plastic repair, Written off vehicle inspection
APPROX CARS PER WEEK: 70 OEM BADGES: N/A
JUDGE POWELL
Bert has transformed his repair centre
using well developed workflow processes, good signage, floor marking
and defining work areas. This must equal faster key to key time.
U
SHOP STATS
LEFT: Paintshop, reception and main panel shop are housed here.
ABOVEL Panelshop,
RIGHT: Painters are so efficient they are taking on extra painting work.
The business runs 1Q1 and iBody- shop - customers receive automated up- dates throughout the repair process which has drastically cut down on the number of calls in.
Behind the reception is the panel shop. The cars are all stripped when they come in and are ready to be worked on. There’s also a spacious plastic repair workshop where more than just bumpers get re- paired. Here they do headlight repair, plas- tic polishing and the odd canoe or vending machine. There’s also a scanning station, every car is scanned pre and post repair.
The panel shop is spotless and totally uncluttered (apparently every department has their own floor scrubbers and they are not afraid to use them). Everything the panel tech needs is on the parts trolley, apart from oversize items which are stored in a container. Next to the panel shop is a beautifully lit paint shop, which seems quite small to be getting out 70 cars per week, with just three spray booths - one with an IR arch - that is until you see the prep bays in the second workshop. Bert runs three teams of two in paint - red, blue and green. Every morning the teams get al- located their numbered jobs and hit them in that order so everyone knows what they have to do and can get straight to it.
While the large 1Q1 boards are great not everyone looks at them all the time. Bert has developed a number of visual aids to ensure nothing is missed - col- oured magnets for sublets. There’s also a rapid system where the team knows if there’s a rapid cone on top of the car it goes straight to the front of the queue.
Next to the booths is a denib and polish bay and then a fit up section in- side the paint shop which can accom- modate four cars. There’s a large paint mixing room which is kept incredibly clean given the volume of cars paint- ed. It was good to see all the painters wearing the correct PPE.
The paintshop is so efficient and ahead of the game that they have tak- en on painting bull bars for local four wheel drive companies just to keep them going. The business has also tak- en on written off vehicle inspections for the police and they do between 10 and 15 of these a week.
The parts area is enormous and they use a large trolley system which fits all of the parts on and in- cludes a bucket for any ‘odds and sods’ so there’s no time wasted on
lost brackets etc. Next to the parts office is the wash bay.
Through to the next workshop which is for strip and fits-up and prep. Bert bought 2000 IKEA lunch boxes which are used for the strip downs with what goes where written on the outside so anyone can fit up.
There’s also a six car prep bay which is just used in the afternoon to prime cars ready for the paintshop the next morning.
The last unit is for storing cars wait- ing for parts or assessment and also for a mass of UTE trays which Bert also sells to other panel shops.
Looking to the future Bert is wisely looking at opening a mechanical shop in the storage facility as storage doesn’t make money. Calibration is next, al- though he really wants the Snap-on ADAS unit which isn’t available in Aus- tralia yet thanks to COVID delays.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS