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Collision Repair
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Monday, 29 April 2013 12:35 |
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Scottsdale, Arizona -- April 29, 2013 -- The PPG MVP Business Solutions Conference held at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Ariz., broke a record, realizing the highest number of attendees for a PPG MVP conference to date. The MVP Conference featured dynamic and well-known keynote speakers that riveted the attendees with their content and delivery.
A statement from PPG says the company is committed to providing leading edge refinish products along with fresh and advanced business curriculum for its customers, and the MVP Conference is one example of delivering innovative and relevant programming to assist its customers and their collision center performance.
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| Sasha Strauss, keynote speaker at the Spring 2013 PPG MVP conference. |
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“We continue to focus on and strive to deliver the best in class and most relevant content at our conferences to help our customers achieve and keep a competitive edge in the marketplace,” says Jim Berkey, PPG, Director, MVP Business Solutions. “Partnerships, education and time are more valuable with each passing day so developing the right relationships and delivering industry leading learning opportunities provides the groundwork for growth and sustainability for our customers businesses.”
Opening keynote speaker Sasha Strauss, Managing Director at Innovation Protocol and Adjunct Professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication delivered a dynamic and insightful presentation titled “Branding 101 / Brand Strategy Essentials”, telling us that in today’s world, now more than ever, brands matter and should be built into business marketing, advertising and public relation strategies.
George Avery, State Farm’s spokesperson to the collision repair industry and current CIC Chairperson presented the insurance company’s overview and perspective on what he defined as “Industry Headwinds” and how State Farm is looking at restructuring to adapt to the changing industry landscape and
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| George Avery of State Farm. |
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opportunities. He also outlined the company’s history on the developing need for an electronic parts ordering system and addressed several questions regarding the PartsTrader initiative. You can read about the latest news from PartsTrader, a feature that allows repairers and suppliers to provide feedback on the performance of their trading partners, at this link.
Over the two days, the conference participants also attended several breakout sessions with topics that covered Digital Marketing, Branding in Social Media and B2B, Creating a Culture of Peak Performance, Turning Customers into Loyal Evangelists for Life, Health Reform on the Eve of Implementation, Change Management vs. Change Leadership, Considering Multiple Shifts and X-Ray Estimating.
To close the conference, keynote speaker Steve Gilliland ignited the audience with his humor and trademarked presentation “Enjoy The Ride.” Steve delivered a personal and professional challenge to the audience: fasten your seat belts, hold on, never lose focus or passion…and Enjoy The Ride.
The conference opened with a recreational event, hosting the MVP Randy Dewing Memorial Golf Tournament held at the Marriott Camelback Golf Complex which also saw record attendance. The tournament and traveling trophy was won by the co-first place teams consisting of:
• Chuck Anderson, Benny Mahoney, Walter Hughes and Ed Carwile
• Ron Stazzoni, Eric Dawson, Andy Dingman and Greg Jacobs
The PPG MVP conference is open to owners and managers of collision centers using PPG Refinish products. MVP conferences are biannual events and key components of PPG’s ongoing commitment to provide advanced business thinking and innovative solutions to its MVP customers.
Prospective attendees are encouraged to visit ppgmvp.com for complete conference information and registration details. Additional information about PPG MVP Business Solutions and future conferences may also be obtained by calling 866-237-8178.
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Last Updated on Monday, 29 April 2013 12:41 |
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News -
Collision Repair
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Monday, 29 April 2013 12:34 |
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Chicago, Illinois -- April 29, 2013 -- PartsTrader has released a significant upgrade to the PartsTrader application. This latest release includes a new feedback function which allows repairers and suppliers to provide feedback on the performance of their trading partners. PartsTrader is currently being tested by shops in State Farm's Rely network in a number of markets in the U.S.
In meeting with PartsTrader users across the initial five markets, repair facilities and parts suppliers consistently requested the capability to provide measurable feedback within the product.
"In order for us to build and maintain a program that is beneficial to repairers and suppliers, it was critical for us to deliver the ability to provide real-time feedback on performance," said Dale Sailer, PartsTrader's Vice President of Business Development. "So many companies lose customers each year without any idea why they lost the business, or didn't gain the new customer that they hoped to work with."
Within the ordering functionality of the PartsTrader application, each party will - on randomly-selected transactions - provide quantitative feedback on how well the other party performed. Users may also provide proactive feedback on a business partner, if desired. In a future release of PartsTrader, this feedback will be utilized to present a star-based rating on each repairer and supplier. These ratings will provide repairers with a tool to evaluate new suppliers, and for suppliers to determine their interest in submitting parts quotes to unknown repairers.
"For years we have heard the industry asking for a way to objectively evaluate business performance throughout the parts supply chain," said Rob Cooper, PartsTrader's Chief Executive Officer. "This new feature is the first step in PartsTrader's users being able to make informed decisions as they consider building new business relationships for buying or selling repair parts."
Additional improvements within this release include the ability of the repairer to cancel parts placed on a fax order within the system and user-recommended improvements to both the quoting and part selection screens.
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Last Updated on Monday, 29 April 2013 12:35 |
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News -
Collision Repair
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Friday, 26 April 2013 15:58 |
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By Mike Davey
Montreal, Quebec -- April 26, 2013 -- Carrosserie ProColor A25 welcomed over 400 industry stakeholders to its Grand Opening event held last week. The new facility is located in Montréal-Nord, Que., and is a proud member of CSN Collision & Glass.
The new facility is an all makes and models colision centre, owned and operated by the same owners as Circuit Ford Lincoln. The collision facility originally occupied part of the dealership's building, but a desire to expand the dealership led to moving and expanding the collision operation as well.
"We wanted to expand the showroom at the dealership," says Peter McLean, President of Circuit Ford Lincoln. "We looked at various options, but the best way forward was to move our shop to a new location."
The staff at Circuit Ford Lincoln saw this challenge as an opportunity. The new home of Carrosserie ProColor A25 is no longer around the back of the dealership, but front and centre at it's own location in a brand-new 11,000 sq. ft. building.
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| Cutting the ribbon to offically open Carrosserie ProColor A25 in Montreal, Que. From left: Jacques Boisvert, Fixed Operations Manager, Circuit Ford Lincoln & Carrosserie A25; Chantal Rossi, City Councillor; Michel Charbonneau, VP Uniselect & ProColor; Denis Coderre, Federal Deputy of Bourassa; Sylvain Lamer, Body shop Manager, Carrosserie A25; Peter McLean, President, Circuit Ford Lincoln & Carrosserie A25; Philip McLean, Vice-President, Circuit Ford Lincoln & Carrosserie A25; Gilles Deguire, Mayor of Montréal-Nord; Clémentina Teti-Tomassi, City Councillor and Jean-Marc Gibeau, City Councillor. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 29 April 2013 16:08 |
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Collision Repair
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Thursday, 25 April 2013 15:51 |
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Oakville, Ontario -- April 25, 2013 -- As Canada observes National Victims of Crime Awareness Week (April 21 to 27), a group of impaired driving victims are in Ottawa today to share their perspectives and concerns with some Members of Parliament (MPs).
Specifically, the group will raise their concern about the lack of progress in implementing recommendations made by the Federal Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in its 2009 report entitled "Ending Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Common Approach."
The report examined the problem of impaired driving in Canada and offered recommendations to help address it. MADD Canada's representatives are asking MPs to support our call for the government to move forward with three of the recommendations from that report:
- the implementation of random breath testing
- tougher sentences for repeat impaired driving offenders
- tougher sentences for offenders with BACs in excess of 0.16 per cent (double the legal limit).
"This report was released in 2009 and it contained some tangible ways to reduce impaired driving deaths and injuries, and ways to deal more strongly with those offenders who repeatedly put themselves and everyone around them at great risk," said MADD Canada National President Denise Dubyk. "But today, nearly four years later, there has been no move to implement those recommendations."
According to a statement from MADD Canada, random breath testing is recognized as a best practice in the reduction of impaired driving. The organization also says it has resulted in significant and sustained reductions in impaired driving crash deaths in the numerous countries which have adopted it.
The report was accepted by the government in principle, with Federal Justice Minister and Attorney General Rob Nicholson noting that the report "will greatly assist the Government in its ongoing efforts to make the impaired driving provisions of the Criminal Code more effective and to contribute to reducing the carnage on our roads caused by alcohol-impaired drivers."
In the year that report was released, 1,074 people were killed in impaired driving crashes and 63,338 were injured. With those numbers as a basis, MADD Canada estimates more than 4,100 people have been killed and more than 240,000 injured in impairment-related crashes in the nearly four years since the report was released.
"We recognize that the three recommendations we are talking about will not stop impaired driving entirely," Dubyk said. "But each one will have a valuable impact in the fight to stop this crime. We urge the government to move forward with these three recommendations and we are asking MPs to join that call."
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Last Updated on Thursday, 25 April 2013 16:35 |
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News -
Collision Repair
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Thursday, 25 April 2013 15:37 |
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Houston, Texas -- April 25, 2013 -- Texting drivers may believe they’re being more careful when they use the voice-to-text method, but new research findings suggest that those applications offer no real safety advantage over manual texting.
The study was sponsored by the Southwest Region University Transportation Center and conducted by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. SWUTC is a part of the University Transportation Centers Program, which is a federally-funded program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration.
The study is the first of its kind, as it is based on the performance of 43 research participants driving an actual vehicle on a closed course. Other research efforts have evaluated manual versus voice-activated tasks using devices installed in a vehicle, but the TTI analysis is the first to compare voice-to-text and manual texting on a handheld device in an actual driving environment.
Drivers first navigated the course without any use of cell phones. Each driver then traveled the course three more times performing a series of texting exercises – once using each of two voice-to-text applications (Siri for the iPhone and Vlingo for Android) and once texting manually. Researchers then measured the time it took each driver to complete the tasks, and also noted how long it took for the drivers to respond to a light which came on at random intervals during the exercises.
Major findings from the study included:
- Driver response times were significantly delayed no matter which texting method was used. In each case, drivers took about twice as long to react as they did when they weren’t texting. With slower reaction times, drivers are less able to take action in response to sudden roadway hazards, such as a swerving vehicle or a pedestrian in the street.
- The amount of time that drivers spent looking at the roadway ahead was significantly less when they were texting, no matter which texting method was used.
- For most tasks, manual texting required slightly less time than the voice-to-text method, but driver performance was roughly the same with both.
- Drivers felt less safe when they were texting, but felt safer when using a voice-to-text application than when texting manually, even though driving performance suffered equally with both methods.
Christine Yager, a TTI Associate Transportation Researcher who managed the study, says the findings offer new insight, but only a part of the knowledge that’s needed to improve roadway safety. “Understanding the distracted driving issue is an evolving process, and this study is but one step in that process,” she says. “We believe it’s a useful step, and we’re eager to see what other studies may find.”
The study’s results are being published during National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Numerous agencies, including the Texas Department of Transportation are sponsoring public awareness campaigns to highlight the dangers of driving distractions, particularly those associated with cell phone use.
Another TTI study now underway is examining the motivations and attitudes of distracted drivers. Results from the focus groups and a 3,000-driver survey are expected in late summer, and will include a look at which demographic groups are most affected by the distracted driving issue.
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Collision Repair
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Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:34 |
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Ottawa, Ontario -- April 24, 2013 -- Two members of Canada’s collision repair industry have been elected to new positions on the Board of Directors for the Automotive Industries Association of (AIA) Canada. Tony Canade of Assured Automotive was elected by AIA members to the position of Second Vice Chairman of the Board. Flavio Battilana of CSN Collision & Glass was also elected to the AIA Board as a director. The new positions were announced at the AIA Canada 71st Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place in Quebec City at the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.
The meeting was called to order first thing in the morning, and the agenda approved. Participants then voted to approve the minutes from last year’s AGM, which was held in Toronto, and the audited financial statements. Following the appointment of new auditors and a review of AIA and Board activities, Mauro Cifelli, Chair of the Nominating Committee presented the slate of individuals for appointment to the Board of Directors in accordance with AIA’s By-Laws.
AIA Canada is pleased to announce that Robert Hattem from UAP was elected as Chair of the Association’s Board of Directors for 2013-2014. The members who attended the 2013 Annual General Meeting of the Association, as well as those who submitted a vote via proxy, unanimously elected Hattem as the new Chairman. Members then elected Tony Canade from Assured Automotive as Second Vice Chairman of the Board.
The following three new directors were also elected to AIA’s Board:
• Brent Hesje, Fountain Tire, serving until the Spring 2016 AGM
• Flavio Battilana, CSN Collision & Glass, serving until the Spring 2016 AGM
• JoAnn McKeown, Osram Sylvania Ltd., serving until the Spring 2016 AGM
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| The 71st Annual AIA meeting saw a number of new faces elected to the Board of Directors. From left: Brent Hesje, Fountain Tire; Robert Hattem; UAP; JoAnn McKeown, Osram Sylvania; and Flavio Battilana, CSN Collision & Glass. |
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Following the presentation, John MacDonald concluded his term as Chairman with a few words to those present and introduced Robert Hattem as the new Chairman of the Board. Robert then addressed the membership and outlined the goals and objectives he has set for his new term, including his commitment to create a human resources focused committee that will work to address the current need for more skilled tradespeople in the industry.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 25 April 2013 15:26 |
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News -
Collision Repair
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Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:16 |
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Cortland, New York -- April 24, 2013 -- The Automotive Lift Institute (ALI) has scheduled three workshops in Canada to serve candidates participating in its new Lift Inspector Certification Program. The sessions will be held in Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton this summer, but deadlines to register are fast approaching.
A Participant’s Orientation, Pre-Course Exam and Course Exam will be offered in each city as follows:
June 20 (Toronto)
Declare eligibility intent no later than May 3
July 10 (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Declare eligibility intent no later than May 20
July 12 (Edmonton, Alberta)
Declare eligibility intent no later than May 20
Each stop will have something to offer for participants at varying stages of the certification process. A six-hour orientation conducted by ALI representatives will be held to outline the administrative aspects of the program, introduce ALI and participant expectations and answer questions. Those who have already been introduced to the program will have the opportunity to take the pre-course exam, and candidates who had previously passed the pre-course exam may take the course exam.
“We’ve organized workshops in cities across North America to make it as convenient as possible for candidates to participate,” explains Dale Soos, Senior Project Engineer for ALI. “Turnout at the sessions we’ve held in several U.S. cities has been great. Since the program kickoff in October, more than 450 participants have enrolled.”
Orientation attendance is open exclusively to inspector candidates. Workshop registration is included in the Lift Inspector Certification Program fee, which is discounted to $1,000 through Sept. 30. The fee also includes a candidate handbook and extensive course materials. There is a testing fee required to take the pre-course or course exam. To reserve a seat at one of the upcoming sessions, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call (607) 756-7775.
The Lift Inspector Certification Program was created to provide third-party qualification of vehicle lift inspectors and to certify those who demonstrate that they are qualified to properly inspect vehicle lifts in accordance with industry standards and in support of Canadian provincial requirements. Detailed materials can be found at autolift.org/certified-inspectors.
To learn more about ALI, please visit autolift.org or call 607-756-7775.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:34 |
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