Working Designs: Bodyshop Layouts
More equipment and more space won’t automatically yield more profit. Productivity and profitability are just as much functions of managment as they are physical capacity.
Small, But Formidable: The Smaller Bodyshops
Growing your business doesn’t necessarily mean “growing” your business. Consider Dave Stephenson, who’s built a solid reputation and six-week backlog out of his one-man shop in a small Iowa town.
A New Profit Center: You
Now that you understand the theory behind how professionals get paid for their hard-earned knowledge and expertise, it’s time to apply it to your business.
The Impact of Air Bags
With 60 million vehicles already equipped with air bags and more-advanced systems on the way, be prepared for repairs of these life-saving inflatables to affect your shop even more.
The Necessary Equipment
If your shop were simply painting used cars,
you could do an adequate job with a bare minimum of equipment.
A paint gun, a random orbit sander and a masking machine would
get most of the work done. If you intend to do productive collision
repair, however, much more equipment is necessary.
When Disaster Strikes
If you’ve even casually kept up with the news in recent years, then you’ve probably noticed a disturbing increase in the number of natural disasters in the 1990s:
The Invisible Repair
Bringing a collision-damaged car back to preaccident condition in a fast, quality-oriented manner while still making a reasonable profit is the goal of every modern body shop today.
Designing A Dream: Kustom Kreations
The newly opened Kustom Kreations, nestled in the scenic Sierra Nevada mountains of Carson City, Nev., is stopping traffic – literally.
Waterlogged: Submerged Vehicles
Repair of water-damaged vehicles is done daily across the United States, which makes it quite possible that your shop may someday be – if it hasn’t already been – involved in
estimating, and possibly the salvage and restoration, of a vehicle that’s been submerged in water.
Coming Up Corvettes
Name: Jerry’s Custom Paint & Collision Center Location: Gresham, Ore. Owners: Jerry and Lori Geiszler Established: 1979 Square Footage: 10,000 Number of Employees: Nine Repair Volume: 60 cars per month (25 percent restoration) Average Repair Cost: $2,000 – collision $12,000 to $15,000 – body and paint restoration Jerry Geiszler has restored so many "American Dream