9 Things You Need To Know When Building
Or Upgrading A Body Shop…And The Common Mistakes You
Should Avoid
Choice Of Building Lot
In many cases, location is a prime consideration in the planning
stage when a new building is being considered for a collision
repair facility. Many “prime” locations are not
in any way realistically suited for a collision repair operation.
If the production needs (including parking) are not at the
forefront of the decision making process, then irreversible
mistakes can be made that can cause the business to ultimately
fail. Typically, you need three parking stalls for every repair
stall, i.e. a ratio of 3:1.
For example, a friend of mine who had spent over twenty five
years in the industry (and had owned his own shop for over
fifteen years) decided he wanted to build a new facility so
his children, who worked in the business, would have a solid
foundation for their business careers.
He picked a lot that happened to be in a superb location
from a customer traffic perspective. However, from a production
point of view, it was terrible. The lot was situated on a
fairly steep hill, it was too small and it had insufficient
room for parking.
He built a two storey concrete building with large diameter
round concrete pillars supporting the second floor. The footprint
of his building was about 3,500 square feet in area (total
area 7,000 square feet). He jammed the spray booth in one
of the rear corners of the building and the preparation stations
against the back wall.
His was a busy shop. He had cars parked up and down the street,
down the side of the building and in the main aisle of the
shop. On many occasions, as soon as a car was loaded into
the spray booth, two or three cars would be parked in front
of the spray booth doors in a line. When the painted car was
ready to be moved out of the booth, two or three technicians
would get in the parked cars and drive them out onto the street,
try to find parking for them or drive them back into the shop!
This happened many times over the years…until my friend
who eventually couldn’t take it any more sold the business.
I know this is an extreme example, but make sure that there
is a balance between the production needs and location requirements.
Size Of Building
In the early nineties I, like many others, thought that with
the increasing pressures to reduce repair costs, the collision
repair landscape of the future would consist of facilities
that looked like large remanufacturing plants. Today, I do
not see ultra large shops dominating the collision repair
industry in the foreseeable future.
What I do see is an industry model where the majority of
the collision work is repaired in 15,000 to 25,000 square
foot facilities. In a service industry there has to be a balance
between production needs and service needs.
The costs associated in keeping say, a 100,000 square foot
facility operating at 85% + of its production capacity twelve
months of the year would be significant, in terms of maintaining
the high market share that would be required and keeping customer
service levels high.
I think in many cases, although not all, the efficiency gains
made by economies of scale with an ultra large repair facility
would be offset by the increased sales, marketing and service
costs. And this does not deal with the increased production
management and sheer size issues associated with an ultra
large facility.
Building Design
It makes sense to most of us that a rectangular shaped building
with more of a square shape would be most conducive to moving
vehicles around from a production perspective. A minimum building
width of 50 to 60 feet is very desirable, if it is possible.
Pillars
Even if construction costs are higher, these will be more
than offset by the potential production capacity increase
in a pillar free, open production area.
I know a very successful multiple store collision repair
shop owner who happens to be in the construction business
as well. He is known as the ‘steel beam king’
to his staff. He typically has no pillars in the production
area of his body shops, if he can avoid them. He bridges and
then removes any load bearing pillars that he can with steel
beams.
Overhead Doors
To maximize production capacity and reduce cycle time you
must minimize the time any job spends in a repair stall with
nothing happening to it.
Whether you plan to build a new facility or upgrade an existing
one, whether you plan to lease or own, make sure you have
sufficient overhead doors in the production area of the building.
I have seen many body shops that have solid building designs
that are ideally suited for a vehicle remanufacturing operation
flawed by the lack of overhead doors or with overhead doors
that are too narrow.
A friend of mine has a number of collision repair facilities
where he has an overhead door leading to the covered parking
area in every repair stall (each body stall is fully equipped).
When a job is stalled because of parts issues, the vehicle
is simply rolled out of the stall into the covered parking
area and a new job is brought into the repair stall.
Question: How many stalls does each technician need in this
type of facility?
Shop Layout & Design
Even if the building design is good and the lot size allows
for ample parking, the shop layout is critical when it comes
to maximizing production capacity. Talk to as many people
as possible about your shop layout ideas. The paint companies
have shop design capabilities as do some equipment manufacturers.
It is critical here that you study the types and sizes of
jobs you typically work on. The production shop layout will
largely depend on the mix of jobs. There are two schools of
thought as to basic shop production styles. I believe the
production process for shop layouts should be:
o preparation and paint shops should be organized in a multiple
or single production line
o the metal shop or body shop should be treated as a production
line for light and medium hits and a as a job shop for heavy
hits.
As an example, I know of one shop in the United Kingdom that
has split its shop in two including the reception area, with
a wall separating the two halves. The total shop area is approximately
40,000 square feet.
The production line side takes up about thirty thousand square
feet and is designed for the repair of light and medium hits.
The heavy hit side of the business has its own spray booth,
frame repair equipment, hoists, and mechanical department.
This shop realized that not only were the repairs of heavy
hits interfering with the production flow of the larger volume
lighter hit jobs, but also the personalities and skill sets
of the technicians were different. Some techs had a short
attention span and smaller, less complex repairs suited them,
while other technicians wanted to sink their teeth into large
jobs with more complex challenges.
Equipment Balance
When it comes to budgeting for a new shop or an upgrade to
an existing facility, it is important to balance production
equipment requirements with the investment required for each
piece of capital equipment.
Owing to the planning required and the focus on permits and
construction issues, (in many cases) the budget is used up
by overspending on the spray booth, preparation stations and
mixing room, leaving insufficient funds to purchase adequate
frame repair equipment.
In most collision repair facilities the metal shop contributes
over 40% of revenues and probably significantly more in terms
of profit dollars. This is not the area where equipment should
be considered as an afterthought!
In addition to frame straightening equipment are Mig welders
and three phase spot welders, as well as short wave infra
red curing equipment.
Ensure that you have made provisions to have sufficient (and
the right type of) electrical power (i.e. 3 phase) available
so you can use a high performance inverter spot welder and
be able to install short wave infra red heaters in the preparation
stations.
Equipment Budget
As a follow on to equipment choice is the actual budget allowance
for capital equipment purchases, or the investment required
for production equipment.
Owing to the nature of the collision repair industry, it
has a technician driven production model. Your goal is to
increase the productivity of your techs and then reduce the
number of stalls that a tech requires to be productive. Then
increase the number of productive techs in your facility.
An obvious way to increase the productivity of a body tech
and reduce the number of body stalls that he requires to be
productive, is to give him his own frame equipment, measuring
equipment, Mig welder, a mid rise lift and an infra red curing
unit. Owing to the price of high performance three phase spot
welders, it makes sense to have one welder per 6-8 metal techs.
Equipment Choice
When we buy anything we always want value for money. Sometimes,
however, we get confused with absolute price and value. In
most cases, when we buy capital goods that are somewhat complex
in nature, we tend to not always have the ability to compare
‘apples with apples’. We do not always do a good
job of gathering sufficient information about competing products
to determine the true value of the different types of equipment.
We also do not always do a good job of clearly identifying
the specific needs and uses for the production equipment so
we can better evaluate competing products and their respective
prices from a features, advantages, benefits and specific
needs point of view.
For example, a customer I used to deal with built a superb
25,000 square foot building for his new body shop in the early
nineties.
I was asked to help him regarding equipment selection and
shop layout. I thought he did a very good job of choosing
the right equipment and the right amount of equipment (he
equipped every body man with their own anchoring measuring
and pulling equipment, etc).
However, when it came to him buying the three European down
draft booths from the spray booth distributor, he got stiffed.
I gave my customer the appropriate specifications that I knew
were needed in a spray booth (to maximize quality of the job,
minimize process time and being cognizant of the fact that
paint materials were trending to higher solids, etc).
Of course, I was not involved in the negotiations and sales
process between my customer and the spray booth distributor;
afterwards, my customer wished I had been.
As is fairly typical in the purchase of high dollar products
some haggling took place and the actual price came down from
the original quoted price by approximately $20,000 plus some
other bits and bobs were thrown in to close the sale. Unfortunately,
when the spray booths were delivered and set up it was obvious
the distributor had been able to reduce the sale price by
lowering the booth specs.
I can personally tell you that the three spray booths never
worked properly. After a couple of years, the booths were
upgraded and performed a little better, but they never delivered
the performance that both my customer and I wanted.
Summary
In conclusion, if you are planning to build a new shop or
upgrade your existing facility, there are some crucial factors
that could have a profound impact on the success of the project.
The viability of your business could be jeopardized if you
make some poor choices in the early stages of the project.
Take note of the factors mentioned in this report and use
the warnings and examples to supplement your own experience
and knowledge.
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