Off With the Parts!
Shuffling new parts from metal department to paint department and back again is beginning to show its age. Though industry critics insist painting parts off the car isn’t a practical alternative, some production shops disagree – and have the reduced cycle times and increased profits to prove it.
Beat the Clock: The Need for the Repair Industry to Improve Cycle Time.
Today’s consolidators are pushing the cycle time envelope. One even reports a 40 percent decrease in the time it takes its shops to return a car to the customer compared to the industry average. How can you compete? These affordable equipment options can help streamline your repair process and reduce turnaround time.
Do Your Job and Get Paid for It: Estimating
Too many shops aren’t getting compensated for the repair procedures they perform because they fail to itemize them on their estimates. How can you be sure you get paid for all the work you do? Become familiar with your estimating system P-pages.
7 Ways to Save Money on Materials
‘Tis the season to spend money on gifts for family and friends. No money, you say? You need a Christmas miracle? You don’t need a jolly old elf with eight tiny reindeer to reduce your expenditure for paint and materials. In fact, if you follow these seven proven steps, you’ll be stuffing stockings with increased profits.
What’s Up?
Your profits are…if you learn to upsell!
Blending 201 – The Next Course
Gone are the days of vinyl tops, so quarter panels and roofs must form a continuous panel to blend. This means the clear should be applied over the entire area (if you use the method explained in Blending 101). It also means there’s an area for debate and disagreement between insurers and repairers.
Reaching New Heights: Separating Types of Painters
What separates the average painter from an extraordinary one? The “best of the best” pay meticulous attention to their technique, gun maintenance, gun selection – and everything else involved with painting a vehicle. In fact, the best paint techs are scientists, students, sleuths, housekeepers and dancers all rolled into one.
The History of Sprayguns
If it weren’t for a maintenance supervisor at a department store and a doctor trying to cure sort throats, you might still be painting vehicles with a brush – taking up to a month per vehicle. Can you say “cycle time nightmare”?
Fill In The Blanks: Correctly Using Fillers
Today, fewer panels are repaired and more are replaced. Likewise, gone are the days when shops used entire 5-gallon pails of body filler weekly to avoid doing metal work. While today’s fillers are used in smaller volumes, a wider variety of styles can provide just what you need — if you know how they work, which to choose and how to use them properly.
The Dirt … On Dirt
Is contamination in your paint jobs a common occurrence? It shouldn’t be. If you identify all the potential sources of contamination, you’ll find that painting isn’t such a dirty job after all.