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Page 1 of 5 by Karyn Hendricks Visible from California’s Highway 15, “Faith” Quality Auto Body, Inc. is located in the fast growing suburban area between Riverside and San Diego. In 1979 when Lee Amaradio, Jr. opened his shop, Murietta was a quiet rural town. In an act of faith, Amaradio sold his home and invested all his assets to build his shop in the isolated area.
Almost thirty years later, “Faith” Auto Body and the area around it have grown by leaps and bounds. From the original 833 square foot building, “Faith” Auto Body now occupies over 30,000 square feet spread over three buildings at his single location mega-shop that produces over $600,000 per month with a single eight-hour shift. | Faith Quality Auto Body: Converting to Waterborne
California shops have until July 1 to wean out the solvent-based products and switch over to waterborne only. The process began in the middle of last year. The shop’s vendor of choice, Sherwin-Williams, organized an orientation for shops. Vice president of Product Development Nick Bartoszek allayed the urge to panic by letting owners and technicians what to expect. General Manager Steve Saunders has taken the lead role in the shop’s transition to waterborne paint.
“Across the board, people were skeptical about the transition,” explained Saunders. “We were all convinced it could not possibly go smoothly. Many of us remember the “waterborne scare” from the nineties. R&D could not keep up with the demands and the effort resulted in failure. However, without much fanfare, Sherwin-Williams continued developing the waterborne technology.”
Once the transition had been mandated in California, Sherwin-Williams was ready to go full bore. A local rep was assigned to put a plan together for the transition. Starting so far in advance of the July 1, 2008 deadline, it was possible to begin small, buying special spray guns, air drying systems and a new wash and disposal system.
Simultaneously, the paint shop began working with the colors. Colors have to be developed out in the field and part of the conversion process is to get the formulas back to R&D, a very labor intensive operation. Sherwin-Williams brought a full bank of AWX toners to get the process going.
“We are always the guinea pigs here in California,” smiled Saunders. “On the positive side, using environmentally-friendly products lets our business stand out from the competition. We can even use the fact that we are a “green” shop in our marketing efforts.”
The paint booths required some retrofitting to handle the new paint system. Three out of five of the booths have been converted and the other two are in the process.
“All in all, our conversion was problem free,” continued Saunders. “Most of our time was spent helping Sherwin- Williams develop the colors. We were involved in developing the new color library, documenting everything we mixed and sprayed. In reality, we have to fine tune colors each year, so this process was not that different from what we normally do.
“And the paint is great to work with. Pearl colors that are usually difficult to spray come out with a perfect finish using the waterborne system. Waterborne kicks off more quickly and corrections can be made inside the booth.”
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Amaradio partnered with good friend Bob Flood and founded “Faith” Quality Auto Body. He wrote the estimates while Flood did the body work at night. After six months, the business could not make enough money to support both men, so Amaradio bought out Flood, becoming sole owner. For the next two years, he was chief cook and bottle washer, with only a helper at his side.
When he was finally able to hire a painter, Amaradio went back to estimating and body work. Three years later, he was able to hire a body man; they shared the body work while he continued to write estimates. Hiring a manager, he was able to move into the back. As the shop grew, Amaradio was able to flag 100% commission, starting to make really good money at last. Finally, he moved into the office full-time and the facility continued to grow.
Keeping up with technology
“Faith” Quality Auto Body is a single location comprised of three buildings totaling 32,000 square feet under roof. Ground has been broken on a new 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing center that will include 4,000 square feet of office space and should be finished in about eight months. It will be devoted to quality control with the most up-to-date management systems.
The paint shop has five Garmat paint booths, two prep stations, a mixing room and a painter’s office between the booths. Amaradio has determined that Sherwin-Williams is the best paint system for his shop. He explained: “People say paint is paint, but we feel differently. We chose Sherwin-Williams as our main paint line because along with paint they offer the kind of support we need as a large volume shop. The support staff has been outstanding and project they have helped us with – including transition to waterborne – has been painless.”
To accommodate body work, the shop contains four Chief E-Z Liners, two Car-O-Liners in the ground and one Car Bench jig system for high-end vehicles that require jigging. To ensure perfect measurement, there is a Car-O-Tronics computer measuring system and the Car-O-Liner mechanical measuring system. The shop also has a Chief Velocity computer measuring system and, last but not least, the Shark computer measuring system. Said Amaradio, “We really believe that vehicles need to be measured correctly in order to be repaired properly.”
Other equipment includes a Hunter alignment rack, two Pro-Spot Overhead Pressure Spot Welders and a Tecna Inverter pressure-fed welder particularly to repair Mercedes -Benz vehicles. All mechanical work associated with a repair is done in-house.
When it came to choosing a management system, Amaradio did his research deciding on Summit Software Solutions Digital Performance System. As it turned out, “Faith” Quality Auto Body was the winner of a $50,000 body shop makeover comprised of Summit’s Digital Performance Management Software, Summit’s web based vehicle status software, Status On-Demand, computer scanners, digital cameras, a digital video camera, digital microphones, installation, setup, training, personalized business process consulting, and a free copy of the soon to be released book, Becoming a Digi-Lean Collision Center, “How to Find More than $10,000.00 per month in your Collision Repair Business.” As Amaradio approached the Summit booth to buy the product, he found out he had won the whole package. This paperless system will perfectly complement the new building dedicated to quality control.
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