For many months prior to March, the collision repair industry had been preoccupied with ADAS systems and autonomous cars and trucks and their effect on the collision repair business.
During a time of economic uncertainty, it is more important than ever for small business owners to understand their financial key performance indicators and use these KPI’s to make proactive adjustments to remain profitable.
“Today’s vehicles are highly engineered and not forgiving of imprecise repair processes. When it comes to crashworthiness after the repair, millimeters and milliseconds matter!” according to Scott Peirce, strategic account manager at 3M, during ASA’s Aug. 19 "Webinar Wednesday."
Author's note: Over a year ago, Jeff Smith, a collision repair instructor at the Northeast Arkansas Career and Technical Center, reached out to me about the overwhelming shortage of technicians. As a result of our conversation, I initiated a new column for Autobody News, "Solving the Tech Shortage," which has since received an award.
The collision repair industry recently had the opportunity to attend the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) open board meeting, held virtually in July.
Mitchell International is the latest company to publicly state that it doesn’t share U.S. shop estimate data with CARFAX.
This year’s Collision P.R.E.P. program commenced Aug. 6 with “Documenting for Repair Process and Liability, and Building a Bulletproof File,” presented by Mark Olson of VECO Experts.
The Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA) planned its inaugural ARA Summer Road Trip for July 23-25, with the intention of connecting up-and-coming industry leaders with experienced auto recycling veterans through tours of several ARA member facilities.
Safety inspections required by automakers as part of post-collision repairs sometimes include measurement of the steering column to ensure it was not damaged in an accident.
An industry survey this summer not surprisingly found a significant decline in shop revenues this spring, but it also found shops were not continuing to lay off employees and were actually growing less concerned about weathering the storm.
Since the pandemic began, many body shops have temporarily suspended the practice of giving refurbished vehicles to deserving families, and it makes sense.
In January 1980, BYTE Magazine announced in an editorial "the era of off-the-shelf personal computers has arrived."
In a previous column, I shared some best practices shops can use to improve their parts-related processes and profits. Here a few more.
At any point, a piece of technology can go from being discretionary to essential, and in many cases, this is what’s happening now with photo estimating within the collision repair industry.