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Thursday night, Akzo Nobel recognized another group of women who manage or are involved in running profitable businesses or associations. This year's Most Influential Women in the Collision Repair Industry are: Camille Eber, president, Roth & Miller Autobody, Portland, Ore.; Angie Goff Gende, operations manager, Goff's Autobody, Waukesha, Wis.; Geralynn Kottschade, general manager, Jerry's Body Shop, Mankato, Minn.; Denise Lloyd, publisher, Bodyshop Business, Akron, Ohio; Patricia Serratore, vice president regional operations, ASE, Manhattan Beath, Calif.; GiGi Walker, president, Walker's Autobody & Fleet, Concord, Calif.; Valeriw White, White Autobody, Florissant/O'Fallon, Mo.
Each of this year's Influential Women will designate a vo-tech school for a scholarship specifically for a female student pursuing a career collision repair. This year Akzo Nobel will contribute $10,000 in scholarship money for ASA to distribute to schools in the United States and Canada.
The congress seminar was moderated by Rick Tuuri, director of industry relations, ADP, and included a panel of six industry experts.
The first panelist to address the group was Peter Largen, vice president of product management, Drivelogic. Largen outlined trends that drive our technology choices, naming three key areas: the benefits of hosted environments; the value of Internet connected communities; and trends in consumer technology use. Using terms such as “thin” and “fat” clients, and ASPs (application service providers), Largen predicts that in the future, other companies and other employees, rather than your own, will maintain the systems necessary to run a repair business, and that shops will access these systems through their browser.
“The green-screen terminal of the past is now the browser,” said Largen. “The choices that will be available [to collision repair businesses], will all be on the Internet. The caveat will be high-speed access for everybody.” Largen said today high-speed access is appreciated by consumers, tomorrow it will be demanded or you'll lose their business.
Steve Yin, vice president of e-business, Mitchell International, was the second panelist to speak to the full house. Yin offered the following steps to wireless enterprise solutions:
“Ideally, it will be more efficient, more effective and more profitable,” said Yin on wireless technology. It will be a matter of combining wireless technology with the Internet, then combining those two advances with your business processes.
Dan Cox, PCPS, Allstate Insurance, discussed the expansion of direct repair programs (DRPs). “From an insurance perspective, it is the way of the future,” said Cox, adding that it provides an affordable policy for consumers.
Cox talked about a number of issues, including insurer economics, loss adjustment expense implications, customer satisfaction and the emergence of the third-party administrators. He also addressed e-commerce and its affect on DRP agreements, workload balancing, part procurement and electronic payments.
Panelist Matt Ohrenstein, chairman and CEO of Caliber Collision Centers, also spoke to attendees about DRP trends. He outlined the following predictions:
The last panelist to speak was Tom McGee, technical director of the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Body Repair (I-CAR). He discussed OEM trends and the impact they may have on the repair industry. Fuel mileage, weight reduction and recycling will all play a part in changing the industry, predicts McGee. He predicts an increase in the use of adhesives, mechanical fasteners and rivits. “We're about two years away from your highest volume cars being aluminum,” said McGee. This is due to weight and recyclability issues. These changes will affect collision repairers in the areas of estimating, repair procedures, equipment and materials used.
Among the innovations and trends filtering into the repair industry is the addition of sensors around the outside parameter of vehicles. Because of upcoming trends, McGee predicts that the collision industry will become even more involved with electrical systems, collision avoidance systems, occupant protection and regulations.
The congress seminar ended with a question-and-answer session involving attendees. The course will be repeated Saturday, December 10 from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in room 311 E-H at the Orange County Convention Center.
The news video captured two firefighters, working to extract an injured motorist from a crashed car, blown from the car by deploying airbags. Both required hospitalization.
Freak accident? Not hardly. The exact same thing can, and does, happen in body shops. Sometimes at the hand (or head) of an experienced technician.
A front-seat driver's side airbag deploys at approximately 200 mph. A passenger-seat front airbag deploys at 250 mph. The increasingly common side airbag deploys at speeds in excess of 300 mph.
In an unintentional deployment, what happens to the shop technician whose head is three inches from steering wheel? What about the screwdriver he's holding in the hand he has resting on the wheel? Where will it be launched with the explosion of an airbag?
Disconnecting the battery does not deactivate an airbag. Static electricity carries enough charge to cause some bags to explode. Some airbags are mechanical, such as the side bags in the front seat of some late model Volvos. Disconnecting the battery has absolutely no affect on mechanical bags.
It's unarguable that air bags reduce the severity of injuries in many accidents. And, they save lives.
It's also true that air bags can injure and kill. The optimum distance one should be from the point where a front bag deploys is about 10 inches. A technician working on a steering column, for instance, is much closer and in much greater danger.
With the assistance of the news video, Mitch Becker, a technical instructor for ABRA Auto Body and Glass, captured the attention of every participant in Thursday's NACE technical seminar, “Airbags: Don't Let Them Blow Up in Your Face!” Seeing two firefighters ejected from a car and sprawled on the ground, one writhing in pain and the other unconscious, is visual proof that airbags can injure and repairing cars can be dangerous.
Automobiles are designed to deploy air bags only in accidents where the bags will increase occupant safety. When cars come into body shops with undeployed bags, technicians should beware.
Even when a car come into shops with bags that have deployed, technicians should beware because every bag on that vehicle may not have deployed. In a t-bone crash, it's very possible front bags won't deploy. The same is true for side bags in front-end collisions.
Complicating this further is the dual-stage front airbag, which is becoming more common with each model year. These bags may not fully deploy in a low-speed accident. Consequently, even though a dual-stage bag may have deployed, there's the possibility of a second deployment mechanism which is still fully loaded.
Becker made it clear, it is imperative that air bag systems be deactivated on cars that come into body shops for repair. What's equally important, Becker said, is that the manufacturer's directions for deactivating the bags be followed without variation. There is no set standard for this procedure, nor is there a standard for testing to see if the bags are deactivated, thus making it all the more important to always follow the manufacturer's requirements.
Mitchell International's “Air Bag Service and Repair Manual” offers some of the most comprehensive instructions available for deactivating air bag systems on most vehicles, Becker said. The instructions are detailed, he said, but it's imperative they be followed explicitly to ensure proper deactivation.
Once the airbags have been deactivated, the repair process may begin. Becker emphasized the word “repair.” Body technicians should not re-engineer. They should repair, he said, following manufacturer specifications in order to ensure the air bag system will work properly once the car is back on the road. In today's litigious society, Becker said re-engineering a vehicle opens the door to increased liability.
At the conclusion of the seminar, Becker deployed the front airbags of a demonstration vehicle. It took a fraction of a second, and it was louder than a rifle. Undoubtedly, such an explosion would injure, or possibly kill, someone closer to the bag than the optimum distance of approximately 10 inches.
This seminar will be repeated Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Room 303.
"Detailing: Clean it Up, It's Your Reputation," was presented Thursday, Dec. 7 in room 311E-H of the Orange County Convention Center as part of the 2000 International Autobody Congress and Exposition. The seminar, conducted by Mike Pennington and Jason Rose of Meguire's, addressed the problem areas of the detailing sector of the industry, and some solutions to these existing problems.
According to Pennington, many of the problems encountered in detailing are "symptoms of some larger disease." The attendees were told that there are several expectations in detailing a customer's car, including: completing the work quickly, making sure that a job is done right the first time and establishing a safe and clean environment. However, problems do arise due in part to disorganization and lack of partnership between painter and detailer.
Rose introduced an interesting statistic to the group. He said that 96 percent of women who are unhappy never complain to the shop. They basically circulate the information to their close circle of friends, causing less customer retention and referral. "That's why we must cover the areas that are important to the customer," he said.
Pennington and Rose also spoke about how to make the detailer a "five-star" technician. They believe that the detailer must have the right equipment, a proper environment and continuing training. "If you want to solve the long-term disease, you must look at these things," said Pennington.
One major concern for the attendees was the issue of continuing training for their detailers. According to Rose, there are many avenues to pursue ongoing training. He suggested contacting the manufactures and suppliers of detail products, trade associations or community college programs.
Although detailers are looked upon as craftsmen in other countries, that level of integrity has not been obtained in this country, Rose said. The detailer's number one true need is respect and recognition. "A happy employee turns out better work," Pennington said.
It was suggested that the shop owners and managers create a good first impression of every vehicle that comes out of their shop--an impression that is linked to the detailer. They suggested that managing the first impression better obtains a better evaluation of the car.
Finally, Rose gave four universal principles of detailing. First, the best way to get the desired result is to use the least aggressive method possible. Make sure your detailer uses the right tools, techniques and procedures. Be able to change and keep up to date on technology. Finally, the detailer has the most impact on customer satisfaction because he is the last person to work on the car. Make sure the detailer is up to standard as a "five-star" technician. "The one who meets the most needs, wins," Rose concluded.
"E-Business: Defining the Supply Chain," moderated by David Schwartz, vice president of business development for AutoVista, addressed issues of new technology that are emerging in the collision industry by way of the World Wide Web. A panel of six, representing the insurance, paint, Internet and collision industries, discussed the way repair and claims information can be changed by implementing new strategies through the Internet. The seminar was held Thursday, Dec. 7 in room 304 E-H at the Orange County Convention Center as part of the International Autobody Congress and Exposition.
Jim Laning, claims consultant for State Farm Insurance, believes that Internet, satellite and wireless connections, web estimators, streaming video and broadband technologies can help decrease the amount of administrative work faced by collision repair facilities. "The Internet's true uniqueness is its ability to reduce interaction," he said. He predicts that motorists will be able to use their wireless Web cell phones and Palm Pilots to submit claims in the future. He also said that customers can or will be able to use the Internet to locate a collision shop, schedule an appointment, view updated vehicle status, pay deductibles, arrange vehicle delivery and complete CSIs.
Bill Lawrence of Caliber Collision Centers spoke of several information flow inadequacies within his company, including hardware and software costs, upgrade and maintenance challenges, redundant entry requirements and the use of three separate estimating imaging software programs. He believes that these problems can be solved by a migration to the Internet, especially Web-based management systems.
can "enhance, add value or create efficiencies" within the paint industry. He predicts that collision repair shops will have the ability to receive real-time paint information through the Internet. He also said this would improve accuracy and eliminate the need for salespeople or phone calls. In the long run, this will improve customer relationships.
Dutra also believes that the Internet can limit the training gaps within the industry. "The Internet can bring information to people's fingertips when they want it." The specific training information he referenced included new equipment, products, business and technical.
Don Feeley of City Body and Frame concluded the panel discussion by saying that the Internet level is a playing field. "The Network you tie into is a network everyone ties into," he said. "All of what you have seen today will happen."
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