Auto Refinish Market
October 2014 www.coatingsworld.com Coatings World | 45
company to support that effort. “Axalta needs to offer a wide
variety of the most productive coatings possible and employ
technical experts that can quickly and efficiently train our
refinish customers on the most up-to-date application tech-
niques,” said Ruess-Saltz. “It also means our sales force
needs the know how to help improve shop profitability and
operations. In the U.S., for example, we see the most sophis-
ticated body shops pushing the envelope in cycle time. Our
latest waterborne technologies - Cromax Pro, StandoBlue
and StandoHyd Hi-Tec - are among the most productive wa-
terborne technologies and are designed to meet that challenge
with coverage in 1.5 coats. This greatly reduces time in the
booth and energy usage.”
Axalta also sees a huge interest in its Cromax Mosaic prod-
uct, a low VOC solventborne paint with collision color capabil-
ity. “In Latin America, our customers call increasingly for great
color matching and improved productivity,” said Ruess-Slatz.
“To meet this demand we provide the latest color development
technology and support tools, such as the Acquire Plus spectro-
photometer, to reduce color matching cycle time.”
“We spend a lot of time in the body shops and their number
one concern is profitability – whether it means increasing the
number of jobs, adding value added services, increasing produc-
tivity or improving the bottom line,” said Brunori. “And what
they tell us is that our products have helped them increase their
productivity as well as their profitability. In some cases, shops
are saving over 40 percent on their product spending…these
are real dollars that go straight to the bottom line. QAP is also
investing heavily in field support staff. Our team of sales and
technical professionals work hard every day at the shop level
in educating and interacting where it matters most – the shop.”
Auto refinish manufacturers must provide value-added sup-
port for increasing body shop performance.
“Intensifying competition combined with rising expectations
from work providers focusing on turnaround time and customer
satisfaction make performance the name of the game in collision
repair today,” said Berkey. “At PPG we’re focusing on turning
these challenges into opportunities through continued enhance-
ment of our MVP Business Solutions programs that have helped
hundreds of shops reduce their cycle time performance and raise
their CSI performance.”
PPG’s Green Belt and White Belt training, along with Rapid
Improvement Workshops, focus on cycle time throughput and
educate the entire shop organization on process improvements
that can be achieved through the practical application of Lean
Six Sigma principles. These intense, hands-on courses are sup-
ported by a full offering of business development classes on
critical fundamentals such as estimating, production, leadership,
strategic planning and marketing.
“This year PPG rolled out Paint Shop Throughput, A Quick
Changeover Approach—training to help shops gain critical capacity by increasing the throughput of the refinish area,” said
Berkey. “Data tells us that typical paint booth cycle time across
the average collision center is almost two hours and should be
closer to 70 minutes. By systematically eliminating non-value-added work and time that creeps into booth work, participating shops are gaining additional booth cycles in a given shift.
Results have been phenomenal with huge increases in critical
capacity by reducing waste.”
Innovations
Brunori sees future technologies focusing on three core areas:
performance, sustainability and impact, and profitability.
“Within performance, our global technology team works
alongside chemical engineers and top vendors to find new solu-
tions to refinish problems,” said Brunoir. “These solutions usually
focus on performance and productivity enhancements as well as
refinishing advanced substrates. Sustainability and impact guide
us in finding more environmentally harmonious repair and refin-
ish products that aim to reduce resources and minimize footprint
and impact. Many of our new products are “Coast-2-Coast”
technology – that means we proactively create coatings that meet
the strictest air quality regulations, before they are mandated.
Our goal is always to formulate coatings that provide solutions
and with minimal change in application technique – intuitive ap-
plication is key. And in today’s global economy and fluctuating
financial situations, we are keen to create products that make our
customers more profitable. We are a Lean company and inten-
tionally minimize overhead and added costs.”
Nanotechnology and improved color capability are areas
where refinish companies are focising their R&D efforts.
“The latest technologies being used for the auto refinish market include nanotechnology for improved color capability and enhanced digital color tools that allow improved color retrieval and
accuracy for our customers,” said Joanne Hardy, North America
technology director at Axalta’s Global Coatings Technology
Center. “There are also advancements in high performance
polymers that allow for improved rheology control to enhance
