Sometimes it's easy to forget that there's a world out there called the Collision Repair Industry that extends beyond the physical walls of your shop. As shop owners you can get so focused on the day-to-day grind of pumping vehicles through your facility that you can overlook the $100 billion global market in which you work. It's not uncommon to get bogged down in local issues — making sure estimates are written, parts are ordered, vehicles are fixed and your business gets paid. What's intimidating is the breadth of the collision repair market and all the factors that trickle down to impact your facility.
In this issue of ABRN you're going to witness a very global approach to the stories. Whether you're reading our cover story on the International Bodyshop Industry Symposium (IBIS) in Montreux, Switzerland, or the Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium coverage from the outskirts of Detroit, at times it helps to have reminders that we are not the only nation on earth. Our industry is much broader than the borders of the United States, which was something preached by former shop owner and industry icon Russ Verona, who passed away earlier this year. It's a viewpoint that many of us need to embrace for the well-being of our businesses.
Changes are taking place worldwide that will impact the automotive industry and collision repair market in the United States. Think about the push in Europe toward waterborne paints. Shops are having to make wholesale changes to their refinish operations in order to aid the environment, and those changes have to be in place in 2007. Those same rules will eventually hit U.S. soil and your shop will need to change too. And those technological enhancements that you seem to encounter on a daily basis? Often those are changes implemented in foreign lands because of new rules, regulations, OEM design improvements or simply consumer preferences.
And then there are issues you probably never even considered, such as counterfeit refrigerant that is harmful to the ozone layer. According to Jacques Gordon's Safety and Environment story "Have I Got a Deal for You," beginning on page 96, shops must be on the lookout for illegal A/C refrigerants. Today most of the world's black market refrigerant originates in countries where R-12 is still made legally, including China, Russia and India. Some of it is sold here as reclaimed R-12, but it's also blended with a wide variety of other refrigerants and labeled as almost anything, including R-134a. Black market R-134a is the most likely source of one form of refrigerant contamination that has infected the U.S. supply. Here's a subject that could be financially damaging to your business and chances are you haven't even heard of it.
As you read through this issue, think outside the box, specifically "the box" that makes up your collision repair facility. There are lessons to be learned by the happenings in foreign lands. Shops in other countries are dealing with the same issues you encounter every day, and that includes insurer and regulator pressures. You think you have it bad? Ask the Australians how their fight with insurer IAG is going. The insurance giant has been battling shops over a policy requiring them to bid on work from photos on the Web. It's these types of ideas that eventually leak over to the U.S.
Paying attention to world events now will arm you for the future in your bays.
