Page 72 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

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BEST MEDIUM VIC
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021
BRIGHTON PANEL WORKS
BRIGHTON PANEL WORKS HAS BEEN IN OUR ‘WELL WORTH A MENTION’ A COUPLE OF TIMES IN THE PAST AND IS NOW FIRST PAST THE POST.
took over the business J from her father a few years ago and has systematically
improved it year on year.
The customer reception area is dis- tinctive. There’s a vibrant blue feature wall which displays the company logo, the reception desk is sleek and modern and there are blue sofas and lovely cush- ions. It’s very welcoming and refresh- ingly feminine despite the use of ‘boy blue’. There’s the usual customer tea and coffee facilities and the big win- dows let in plenty of light. We love the
large porthole window at the back.
The offices behind reception have large screens with the iBodyshop depar- ture boards on display - these are also
mounted in both workshops.
While it’s not ideal that the paint and
ULIE PETTETT NUMANOGLU
panel workshops are across the street from each other, it does allow for each to be spacious. Staff like the space and it’s actually proven to be a good recruitment tool especially for technicians who have worked in shops so cramped you can hardly open a car door without hitting something. The team has been refreshed and is now younger, more motivated and target driven.
When we first visited Brighton Panel Works a few years ago Numanoglu hadn’t long been at the helm, it seemed to us that her father might have been a bit of a hoarder. On the next visit the shop had been seriously decluttered and at the last visit the PPG lean system had been adopted and it was abundantly clear that this business is an oasis of or- der. There are photos on the wall of where everything should live, the cup-
boards are meticulously organised and it’s obvious that standard operating pro- cedures are all well adhered to.
Walking across the road from reception to the panel shop in the rain (it is Mel- bourne) we find a large parts receiving area. One of the improvements that Nu- manoglu had had on her list was installing new lighting because the panel shop was a bit dark and gloomy and what an im- mense difference this has made. She also made lemonade out of the lemon that was the previous Victorian long lockdown and used downtime to paint the floors in paint and panel workshops which has also add- ed to brightening the place up. The panel shop might benefit from some marked out bays but it’s clean, did we mention bright- ly lit, and highly functional.
The paintshop is large and airy and has a polishing bay, again with impressive light-