Why a Winnipeg dealer group brought an assembly line approach to its body shop

Henry Ford had a brilliant idea 106 years ago when he introduced the assembly line to cut costs, improve quality and increase output. Those principles are being applied today at Crown Auto Body & Glass in Winnipeg to rebuild damaged cars. 

The shop’s advanced repair process (ARP) cuts the time needed to repair a car, increases gross profit through better cost control, improves quality and customer satisfaction and delivers the repaired vehicle back to its owner in a predictable time, said General Manager Darren Beer. 

“With ARP, we can put the car back together and give it to the customer the same day,” Beer said. 

Crown Auto Body’s parent, Crown Auto Group, operates two body shops at two locations in Winnipeg — one is a 12,500-square-foot (1,150-square-metre) standalone shop, used by five dealerships, and the other is a 9,500-square-foot (800-square-metre) body shop at Winnipeg Honda, where Beer also is the dealership’s body shop general manager. 

5-7 DAYS, DOWN TO 2-3 

Both shops take the same approach to repairs. 

The standalone body shop can complete repairs on a car with $3,800 in damage — a typical repair at the shop — in two to three days on average, when traditional shops take five to seven days, Beer said. 

The business conducts 18-20 estimates a day. And since it began experimenting with lean processes a decade ago, revenue from monthly repair work completed has risen to $957,000 today from $312,000 in 2009. 

In traditional body shops, one technician is assigned to a vehicle and is responsible for disassembly, repair and reassembly. Many of these shops pay a flat rate for a job, so the temptation exists for a technician to cut corners so he can finish the job quicker than the estimated time. 

In contrast, Crown takes a team approach: Assigning a group of journeymen and apprentices to work on specific stages of the repair. Crown has a staff of five journeymen and 13 apprentices. 

Beer said the company cuts costs by using the same material — for example, one type of sandpaper — for everyone and by tracking use of materials, such as quantities of paint used. This reduces waste by ensuring that only the amount of paint needed for a job gets mixed. 

LOVING LEAN, OR LEAVING 

When Crown went lean, not all technicians were willing or able to adapt to the new process, and Beer said the company lost some workers along the way. 

But the technicians who stayed or have since been recruited “absolutely love it,” he said. One technician who left the company returned within six months because he preferred the lean environment, Beer said. 

Technicians who enjoy one aspect of the job — disassembly or welding, for example — can concentrate on their specialty and become experts. 

“I have doctors for each job,” Beer said. 

RETHINKING REPAIRS 

Across Canada, about 15 body shops either owned by or affiliated with dealerships are experimenting with lean processes in auto body repair, said John Cox, services manager in Canada for AkzoNobel, a Netherlands-based company supplying many body shops with their coating materials. 

The company asked Crown to join AkzoNobel’s Acoat initiative, the consulting arm that encourages client companies to develop innovative processes. 

“We’re trying to train our customers to create a more sustainable environment,” Cox said. “The collision industry is a very unpredictable, chaotic environment.” Helping auto shops develop better processes, he said, “strengthens our relationship with them.” 

“A lot of body shop owners were ex-technicians,” Cox said. “They’re not necessarily good businesspeople.” 

Members of the Acoat group, including Crown, travel from across Canada to meet twice a year and share ideas. Each company is challenged to come up with innovative solutions. 

Beer, the current chair of the Acoat collaboration, said some of Crown’s best ideas have come from their weekly “kaizen” (constant improvement) meetings and often from new employees. 

“Some guys are here two or three months, and they can see something,” Beer said. 

AkzoNobel introduced lean processes in Europe before bringing the concept to Canada. 

Beer said he is fascinated by how each shop contributes: “They have a lot of great ideas.” 

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

The process begins with one team disassembling a damaged car and preparing a detailed repair estimate. A typical estimate takes 35-43 minutes. Insurance approvals take two to three days. 

Because the vehicle is being taken apart, estimates have a high degree of accuracy or “true hours,” said Crown Auto Body & Glass General Manager Darren Beer. 

Technicians match parts, then tag and photograph them and put them in labeled boxes. The paint is colour-matched for later application. 

The vehicle then moves on to the build-down team. That group does the heavy body repair, such as pulling the frame, repairing metal and welding on parts, when necessary. 

The vehicle is then moved to the repair area, where body filler is used where needed and plastic parts are repaired. Then it is shipped to the prep area where the repaired parts are sanded and primed for repainting. 

Next up is the masking and staging area, where the vehicle is taped and inspected before it enters the paint booth. 

The car is painted with the pre-matched colour, then sent to reassembly: Technicians reinstall headlights, bumpers, mirrors and any other parts initially removed. When the car leaves the paint booth, the customer is called to arrange pickup. 

At each stage are quality-control checkpoints, where a technician from the next stage inspects the work, Beer said. 

“It doesn’t move if there’s a problem.” 

Bottlenecks can occur, and for that reason an alert sounds every two hours to allow teams to discuss their progress.  

“The cool part is, we can move resources as needed if there’s a problem in one area,” Beer said.