OPERATIONAL OUTPUT YOUR ROUTE TO SUSTAINABILITY AND THE FUTURE OF COLLISION REPAIR
What truly is sustainability? Is it about protecting the environment, or about protecting your business? Does it have to be one or the other, or both?
When we first started thinking about sustainability in the modern era, circa 1972 in Stockholm, it was about reacting to new threats of Global Warming. It began when the United Nations highlighted the Earth was warming faster than at any time in history and that unless action (reducing greenhouse gases and their effect) was taken, the results would be catastrophic.
Their first thoughts were solely about reducing the use consumption of fossil fuel used to generate energy. This plan did not truly think about any knock-on effect this might have on industry and how it might affect profitability. They certainly were not thinking about the collision repair industry. In the 70’s sustainability was only about preserving the Earth.
Fast forward to today, and we have seen significant developments with huge amounts of resources from OEM’s, Paint, Consumable, and Equipment Manufacturers, as well as suppliers and distributors to create a more sustainable process.
The collision repair industry has undergone and continues to undergo transformation around the subject of sustainability. It has become a key focus due to various environmental regulations applied by governments, consumer demand, as well as cost-saving opportunities.
It is possible for repair centres that adopt greener practices, reduce waste, lower emissions, and improve efficiency while maintaining profitability.
Collision repairers traditionally have relied on energy intensive processes, using high VOC paint products, with inefficient equipment and processes. As a result, we were wasteful with products and energy usage and massively inefficient with our labour.
Time is money, is a famous phrase attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Time is a valuable resource, and wasting it is losing money because time wasted cannot be used to create something productive and profitable.
As if running a collision repair centre was not difficult enough. Now you must deal with sustainability to reduce your impact on the environment by consuming less energy, invest in new technology whilst trying to make profit. There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. There is help out there. There are things being done and can be done, to best enable you to thrive, and become truly sustainable on all fronts.
So, let’s get positive. With all the advances in products, equipment, supply chain and training, it is highly likely that you can positively impact both your local and global environmental credentials as well as thriving economically.
DEVELOPMENTS SINCE THE 80’S
PAINT PRODUCTS
We have seen the introduction of waterborne – low VOC which dramatically reduce emissions per repair order. We have moved from low solids, through medium, to high and finally ultra-high solids by developing new novel resins that allow for better application and durability characteristics. The latest basecoat systems allow for almost continuous application with only a single flash off prior to single or 1.5 coats of clear application.
We will continue to see developments in paint products such as the growing acceptance of ‘ambient drying products’, we will see a growth in foil developments, DTM products and alternative cure technologies. All these developments will however demand a change in the process and possibly a change or use for equipment.
SPRAY-BOOTHS
In the 80’s a spray-booth was considered a luxury. In essence, they were simple pieces of equipment that delivered filtered and sometimes heated air into space housing parts of a vehicle or a whole vehicle and removed overspray during the application process via a filter to the atmosphere. I once described them as light boxes that occasionally get warm.
Modern booths on average consume around 40 percent of a shop’s energy usage, they utilise (or should utilise) variable frequency invertors than can adjust the air volume and speed in the cabin depending on the process being undertaken to optimise the conditions and provide the most efficient use of energy.
They are fitted with low energy LEDs, high efficiency filtration and use a host of heating processes such as direct fired, IR, UV and broad band IR. One key area for booth development is within data capture, that every supplier and user will have to embrace.All the technology named above can be retrofitted to most existing booths, thus reducing your energy consumption and decreasing your booth occupancy at the same time.
SPRAY-GUNS
In the 80’s, spray-guns applied low solid paint at a very high air pressure to allow for the best atomisation and were low technology. Today’s spray-guns, whilst looking very similar, are nothing like their predecessors. Utilising HVLP and extremely complicated air-cap designs, they can offer flawless finished, high-transfer levels of product to object, low overspray and thus require less filter changes in the spray-booth.
Spray-guns like everything else will continue to develop, such as the recent developments with digitality, and data capture.
COMPRESSORS
In the 80’s, almost every shop had a very large and noisy constant speed compressor which was incredibly inefficient. It ran continually and as a result, consumed huge amounts of energy. Today, we have variable speed screw-type compressors that adjust the output on demand instantly. They may be oil free and in some instances can recover heat from the unit to be utilised elsewhere.
DOSING MACHINES
A relatively recent addition (2014 when Daisywheel was first released), all dosing machines will use more energy than normal mixing systems, but they will provide (when used correctly) extremely accurate mixing of products, thus reducing mistakes and waste. These machines are not about speed, they are about accuracy, and thus rework reduction.
SHOP-LIGHTING
Many shops were not purpose built in the past and indeed a great deal of them are not. The correct amount of light is critical to a shop’s efficiency and the quality of the finished product. Probably the single biggest development in lighting in the last 50 years has been Light Emitting Diodes or LED’s for short.
Commercially available since the 60’s, breakthroughs in the 90’s revolutionised their use and their market penetration. Now they are accepted as the light source or choice for the collision repair industry.
They use 80 percent less energy than traditional bulbs, and can last between 25,000 to 50,000 hours, or about 3,125 – 6,250 days. They do not contain mercury or toxic gases, provide instant brightness and produce no heat.
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
It is extremely expensive in fuel and vehicle wear and tear to deliver products to the shop up to three times a day. While the shop is awaiting deliveries, it is not producing. Inventory management systems, at first glance, don’t offer energy savings. However, if your people are waiting and the lights and heating are on, then the energy per hour of operational output goes up and thus profits go down.
CONCLUSION
If we take all the above points in singularity, they can make a big difference. However, when used in combination or complementary, they can provide a huge benefit in energy savings, and operational output gains. It is not about the energy you use per minute, it’s about the minutes you use the energy for. You can use more energy for less time to gain time, and thus have more time to sell. Energy is not just measured in Kilowatts, it can be measured in intellect.
EXAMPLES
A collision repair centre requires a lighting layout plan different to that of an office or a warehouse. We do not need lighting over driveways because we should not be working in driveways. That only blocks access and leads to higher non-productive activities and less through-put. We need lighting on work bay lines to allow the light to travel to the lower panels without casting shadows. This makes it easier for the operator to affect a quality repair.
The spray-booth is often tagged as the bottleneck of the system as well as consuming the vast majority of the business energy needs. Therefore, within reason, the shorter the occupancy time, the greater the output and thus in general, the more revenue potential. Spray-booths normally provide heated air from the roof and pull it over the vehicle and out of the floor. Hot air wants to rise, and thus in a spray-booth, the air stratifies in layers of varying temperatures with the hot air being at the top, but the vehicle is on the floor. Taking air from the roof area and pulling it down uses lower energy and then pushing it over the vehicle at a higher velocity increases heat transfer efficiency. This can reduce baking times by over 50 percent and thus free up space for more production. Using a little more energy over a shorter time equals energy saving.
Do not run booths when there is nothing in them just to keep them warm. Also, don’t mask up vehicles in them, they are a finite resource. If you blow off vehicles before you paint them in the booth, do this at a greater air pressure than you paint. Yes, it uses more energy, but it removes more debris and thus requires less compounding which uses energy.
Paint of all types can be expensive, and thus waste is very expensive. But waste in this area is sometimes difficult to measure. Simply going into the mixing room and looking for waste in PPS cups is not reliable, as any over mixing might be in the vehicle, which is still a waste. Also, undermixing and not putting enough on is creating a possible issue for the future. Recent developments in spray-gun technology have created guns and systems that can measure paint usage that goes on the vehicle, versus what was mixed.
PREPARATION
Speed is not always about being fast, it’s about being optimal.
Think about this as a launch pad for your journey. It is all about balance, so, in general, you can sand a vehicle down faster with a lower grit of paper, however, it will require more paint to fill the scratches, thus taking overall products, time and overall energy. Saving the planet is not an ‘at all costs’ thought process, measure twice and cut once is a great way to think of how you should create your sustainability plan.
