Page 75 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.A
75
JUDGE POWELL
A large and expanding business
including a new dedicated aluminium repair section plus
a light tunnel to assess those upcoming hail repairs. B & A have made the most of new technology to increase output and reduce cost.
U
As the customer drives in there’s an undercover area for estimating and hand- over is to the right of what B&A calls the customer experience building - which is an incredibly impressive layout. Straight ahead is the car museum with around 20 cars which are a mixture of the family’s collection and customer cars. anything from a Ferrari to a Fiat 500 is on display and clients are welcome to have a browse.
Just outside the museum is the quality control light tunnel in which each car repaired is scrutinised. Did we mention the place is huge? Next to the light tun- nel is the lunch room (yes the coffee ma- chine was pointed out) offices and up- stairs is the training room, which used to be the boardroom and old offices be- fore the renovations took place. The of- fices are used to for individuals to take tests for I-CAR and OEMs training. B&A achieved Gold Class back in 2017.
Moving into the entrance of the panel shop and new to the judges since our last in person visit is an aluminium repair fa- cility, complete with bags of snakes to keep the panel technician going. There’s a production office too - with so many
staff and cars being repaired its good to have this office inside the workshop.
Walking into the panel shop proper, the structural repairs take place on the left and the disassembly and fit up on the right. Massive screens are every- where so that the team can see the iBod- yshop production boards.
Then its onwards to the enormous re- finish area which includes the polishing area. There’s dust extraction on the floor to ensure cleanliness. There are three booths and two infra red areas.
So when we say huge - we are taking a five acre block with around two acres un- der cover. There are cars and vans every- where - all in ordered sections of course.
Opposite the paint and panel workshops are the commercial vehicle and mechani- cal workshops. “We say yes to everything,” says Dominic, “it’s a can do attitude.” He means it too - there was a young child’s ‘peddle’ car there that he had glued the side mirror back on.
On the block, there’s another large shed and parking area for undrivable cars where the parts are on backorder - thanks to COVID this is jam packed.
The Mazzeo family have built an enormous and highly impressive business constantly investing and evolving – an industry leader for sure.
The shop employs an impressive six apprentices. Dominic reckons they at- tract the younger generation because they want to work on the latest mod- els and having badges like Tesla and BMW is a definite plus from a recruit- ment perspective.
“If you can align yourself with the manufacturer then half the battle is won also in terms of marketing and accessing all of the information to repair the car. Plus the training is phenomenal.”
Another business motto is “A smile on the face is better than money in the bank,” when it comes to customer ser- vice. I know I’d be smiling if I had my car repaired there.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS