Content brought to you by ABRN. To subscribe, click here.
The quest to maximize efficiency in your automotive paint shop can sometimes feel like an unattainable aspiration. Backlogs can cripple production. Painters may not be working as efficiently as possible. Even your own finishing equipment may be slowing down your operation.
Body shops can become more efficient by taking a simplified approach — first knowing how much work their equipment can produce, then focusing on small adjustments to their process that hopefully yield large returns in the long run. While process changes may be difficult for some shops, it is an easier (and more affordable) route than trying to solve an efficiency problem by purchasing an additional paint booth that may not be needed.
Tools to increase your shop's efficiency
One of the best ways to identify if your shop is operating at maximum efficiency is determining how many paint booth cycles your shop can perform in a day, as well as how many refinish hours your shop can get out of your booth in a day. These metrics can help your shop pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses, and they also serve as a benchmark when your shop is deciding whether it is worth the investment to hire more technicians or purchase additional equipment.
Evaluating airflow styles
Four booth cycles a day should be achievable for shops that have a standard downdraft paint booth. Top-performing shops max out at five or six cycles a day with a downdraft booth. Only three cycles a day is average for shops with semi-downdraft and crossdraft booths, with top performers at four or five cycles a day. Masking and positioning vehicles and parts in the booth takes a lot more time with semi-downdraft and crossdraft airflow, limiting how many cycles a shop can perform in a day.
In order to withstand the airflow in a semi-downdraft booth, plastic must be taped around the entire vehicle before painting. In a downdraft booth, technicians can simply place the plastic; they do not need to tape it around the entire vehicle since the airflow will draw the plastic tight to the vehicle. Technicians will only need to cut out the plastic around the parts of the vehicle that they are painting so they are exposed.
Painters also must be more conscious of overspray in a semi-downdraft booth. If you are painting in the front of a semi-downdraft booth, overspray drifts over the vehicle to the exhaust filters at the rear of the booth. Parts in the booth could be contaminated with overspray, so if you have a full booth load, you may not be able to spray more than one color at once.
Likewise, caution is needed when painting blend panels. Always place blend panels on the intake side of the booth — upstream of any parts you are painting. If positioned the wrong way, overspray could drift across the blend panel, causing it to not match the adjacent panel.
The flow of air in downdraft booths provides excellent overspray and contamination control for cleaner paint jobs. Regardless of where you are painting in a downdraft booth, overspray is directed downward through a filtered exhaust pit in the floor, making it easier to spray multiple colors. Downdraft booths also offer more upgrade options, including an expanded exhaust pit, to enhance airflow.
The benefit of one more car a day
Averaging 12 refinish hours of work in each booth cycle is considered efficient. That translates to at least 48 refinish hours through your booth a day. For top-performing shops, as many as 70 refinish hours per day per booth is achievable if they are operating at peak efficiency.
With the average U.S. work order around $3,000 and an average gross profit of 40 percent, most shops are making $1,200 in gross profit per vehicle. Putting through one more car per day means the potential of $288,000 of additional gross profit per year. Even if a shop puts through only one more car per week, that is still $62,400 of additional gross profit per year.
Maximizing your paint booth's refinish hours
As the number of work orders and competitors in the collision repair industry continues to rise, shops must find a way to increase throughput while maintaining quality. Increasing your shop’s refinish hours is not as daunting a task as you may think. These are simple ways to get more refinish hours out of your booth:
Preplan your paint booth cycles at the beginning of each day by staging booth loads in a dedicated space on your shop floor. Determine which jobs you can group together to maintain an average of 12 refinish hours per cycle.
Premask as many things as possible before they enter the booth.
Mix all your basecoat before jobs enter the booth.
Paint parts off the vehicle. In addition to increasing your paint production hours, your shop saves on the cost of masking materials and avoids downtime in the booth needed for masking the vehicle before you spray.
Spray multiple colors in the same booth load. Parts being painted the same color need to be spaced only 1 to 2 feet apart. Parts of a different color should be spaced 4 to 5 feet away to help minimize overspray contamination of colors. Always spray metallic or pearl colors first and solids second. If you have black parts to spray, paint them last. Following this order ensures that if there is any overspray drift, the solid colors cover it up when they are applied.
Adding technology to your operation
Side-load systems are another way to boost the production level of a paint booth. In this setup, a technician loads the car onto a track and dolly system that may span the entire paint department of a shop. Cars can be moved sideways from prep areas to paint areas without having to be driven.
This increases production by eliminating masking or unmasking in the booth. A vehicle can be fully masked and bagged outside of the booth. The average masking job can take 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the complexity of the job. Saving that much time per job can help generate a minimum of one more car per day for your shop — a huge moneymaker over time.
As soon as one car is finished curing, it can be pushed out of the booth as the next car slides in. Once you close the booth’s doors, painting can begin immediately. Some shops with side-load systems are so efficient, they can paint one car every 35 minutes with just one paint booth.
Illuminating your shop with proper lighting
Having adequate lighting in your paint booth and prep environment can immensely benefit your shop. With proper lighting, technicians will see imperfections better. And correcting those imperfections before a vehicle is painted can save your shop a significant amount of time and money.
Plus, LED lights are now more affordable and efficient, so upgrading lighting is not as expensive as it was years ago. Some states and counties also offer rebates and tax credits on LED lighting, potentially lowering your shop’s upfront costs.
LED T8 lamps produce more light, yet the light itself is softer and less blinding than that from fluorescent bulbs. Vehicles and parts appear much brighter in a booth with LED lamps. They also last longer than fluorescent bulbs, reducing the number of times you need to replace the lamps.
Now is the time to evaluate your shop’s processes to ensure it is operating as efficiently as possible. This starts with understanding how many paint booth cycles your shop can perform and how many refinish hours your booth can produce in a day. From there, shops can take production-boosting actions — such as preplanning booth cycles, painting parts off the vehicle or enhancing their operation with side-load systems or LED lighting — all in the name of maximizing efficiency to increase profit.
