Long Beach, Calif. - Ranbir Sohal and Harbeer Chahal say that when they decided to purchase Eddy's Auto Body & Paint in December 2004, they had no experience with the collision repair industry but saw an opportunity to apply their experiences in manufacturing and engineering.
"We were looking for a business to buy, and this looked like a good opportunity," Chahal said. "From an economic point of view, it appeared to have the potential to be highly profitable relative to the purchase price."
Sohal said he also saw the opportunity to apply the principle of lean production they had learned in manufacturing. "We saw it as a business that we could streamline and do things that weren't typically done in this industry."
The partners said that much of the first year was spent learning the collision repair industry. Beyond the technical process of repairing cars and the expectations of customers, they also learned how transient and resistant to change the labor force was, Chahal said. "A lot of the technicians are very resistant to change and insist on using the old methods," he said. "The individual that will listen to you and understand and be willing to say, 'Let's try it,' is a rarity."
Sohal said much of the work since then has been to locate employees that are willing to try something different and to slowly introduce changes in a way that the staff can accept.
The pair have gradually modified the shop to implement a "Fast Track" system that focuses on repair that requires five hours of labor or less, Sohal said. This is partially a result of the shop doing a good deal of fleet work for rental car companies and government agencies that results in many smaller repair jobs but also has been further encouraged in several ways. Large repair jobs are referred or transferred to a second shop, Ontario Collision Center, which the pair purchased in January, he said, and mid-size jobs are repaired in several bays outside of the Fast Track until they are complete enough to fall within the five-hour range.
Sohal said that around 80 percent of the shop's business is now $1,000 jobs or less, while nearly all are less than $3,000. "If it's something major, we send it up to Ontario," he said. "They can better handle those jobs because they're used to working on the bigger repairs. We're able to concentrate on the small and medium-size jobs and get them out quicker." He said the shop's cycle time has dropped about in half since the partners purchased it.
Sohal said the shop's "A" tech primarily works on the larger hits in four bays to bring them to the point that they have less than five hours left to complete, at which time they are transferred to the Fast Track, which is staffed by "B" and "C" technicians. This allows the A tech to handle the more technical work, while allowing the less technical work to move through the shop unimpeded.
"We are trying to get a flow," Sohal said. "A lot of the shops we went to didn't seem to have a method to the repair -- it was very confusing. Streamlining the process and having a determined repair process benefits everybody." He said they finally toured a shop in Canada that was using a Fast Track system that appealed to their manufacturing background.
The facility is made up of a 32,000-square-foot lot with two buildings of about 6,000 square feet each. One building contains four bays where larger jobs are worked on, as well as two paint booths, the mixing room, a two-bay reassembly area, and a two-bay sanding and polishing area.
The second building contains the offices as well as the six bays of the Fast Track system. Sohal said the Fast Track process begins in the parking lot, where vehicles are aligned in the order in which they are to be worked on that day, so that there is no question for the technicians as to which car is to be worked on next.
The windows of the car have the repair order number, due date, and basic information on what is being repaired, while complete details are available on the RO inside the vehicle, Sohal said. The first stage is made up of three bays where damaged parts are removed and metal repair is completed. The cars then exit the building, making a U-turn to re-enter on a parallel course of three more bays where priming and prepping is completed using Sherwin Williams water-based primer and dry sanding, he said.
If at any point a problem such as additional damage or missing parts is identified, Sohal said the car is parked in one of two stalls just outside the building. This serves two purposes, he said. As soon as he sees a car in those spaces, he said he is alerted that there is an issue for him to resolve, and it gets the vehicle out of the flow so that other work is not stalled.
Sohal said that in addition to forming a path for work to flow through the facility, he has worked to clean the shop of everything that is not needed for the repair and to organize what is needed so that it is readily available at the point of use. "we're trying to have a place for everything," he said. "If you don't need, it get rid of it."
For instance, he said that by working with Sherwin Williams, the shop's paint supplier, it was decided that technicians needed to sand the repair with 320, then 400, and finally 800 to prepare for the shop's waterborne Sherwin Williams AWX paint to be applied. Therefore, those three sandpapers are available at the location in the shop they are being used but other sandpapers are not purchased, so there can be no confusion or deviation from shop procedures.
Sohal said he has positioned a product-mixing station with fillers in the bays where repair work is done and has positioned trash cans, which are not to be moved, in convenient locations, making it easy to keep the floor clear of trash. He said technicians have reacted positively to the organization of the shop and are gradually accepting the changes and suggesting modifications that will further improve the process.
The suggestions and continuing refinements are key to the lean manufacturing process, Sohal said, because lean is not about accomplishing a set goal but about continuing to improve the process indefinitely.
The changes in the type of work being handled by the two shops also allowed the partners to move around equipment to make the best use of it, Sohal said. The Long Beach location received an older Penta rack, he said, so that it would still be able to do occasional light frame repairs and minor pulls such as radiator supports and rear body panels; however, its newer Car-O-Liner frame rack and resistance welder were moved to the Ontario location, where they can be used for larger jobs.
Sohal said the shop has depended on a number of its suppliers including 3M and Sherwin Williams to help in implementing the system. Both companies have provided training, and Sherwin Williams has been instrumental in helping to establish standard operating procedures, he said.
The shop also recently changed over the Sherwin Williams AWX waterborne system, which Sohal said has worked well for the facility. "We really appreciate Sherwin Williams and their approach to service," he said. "Sometimes the service you get from a supplier when they are trying to sell you is not what you get later, but that has not been the case with Sherwin Williams."
The shops' employees have also been attending I-CAR classes in an effort to become I-CAR Gold Class, Sohal said.
Other suppliers, including Boulevard Buick Pontiac GMC, Long Beach Chrysler Jeep, and Auto Parts Direct, have also been instrumental to the shop's success by ensuring a smooth flow of parts to the shop, Sohal said. "Communication is key," he said. "A supplier can have the part, but if they can't get it to us when we need it, what good is it?"
All of the efforts are beginning to pay off, Sohal said, with cycle times dropping, profits improving, and capacity growing, but the shop still has a lot of room to grow by his estimation. "Sometimes now I feel like we're not that busy but at the end of the month the numbers are good, so the process is helping us move more cars with less stress and confusion.
"I would say that I am about half way on the physical stuff," Sohal said. "Painting the lines on the floor and getting things moved to the right place in the shop is all well and good, but it's kind of just putting the Christmas lights up. What we really need is to get the culture in place, and that has just begun. If I had the culture, I wouldn't need the lines on the floor."
Sohal said he estimates that while Eddy's Auto Body & Paint has expanded its volume substantially since the purchase, it is still operating only at about 50 percent of its potential capacity.