Though it might seem unimaginable now, there was a time when Auto Body World was one of the collision repair industry's best-kept secrets. The Tolleson, Ariz., -based multi-shop operator opened its first location in 1946 and spent the next six decades doing quite well for itself while grabbing little attention from the national media.
That all changed in 2009 when the business grabbed the top spot in ABRN's inaugural Top Shops contest. After taking a year off, Auto Body World tossed its hat into the mix and is again among the nation's 10 best shops. Where they made history two years ago with repair processes, today they're making their mark by transforming the collision industry's most vital resource – its people.
It's impossible to appreciate what Auto Body World is developing in 2011 without noting its previous significant achievement: the rapid production model (RPM). Auto Body World began developing this repair process five years ago after deciding that their business – if it was to thrive – would need to reinvent itself through the development of an entirely new repair model.
CEO David Fait and his management team adopted a "burn the ships" approach. They decided Auto Body World would adopt lean processing, but their version of lean would be a totally unique, end-to-end model, with each repair process supporting every other.
That version, RPM, is now a continuously improving 11-step repair model whose goal is to standardize and simplify the steps in every process so they are transparent and easy to understand. Employees within each process are empowered to provide ideas for simplification. In fact, RPM's ability to deliver continuous improvement – and therefore the best cycle times and highest levels of customer satisfaction – rests very much with the team members closest to the work who are always looking for ways to make meaningful improvements. RPM operates from the floor up, not the top down.
Once Auto Body World had RPM in place at all of its locations, its next step was obvious —invest even more in its human resources who make RPM work. In 2010, it launched a strategic initiative to become the employer of choice in its market. This initiative included more than 40 key improvements. Its first and most significant upgrade was adding Nelly Diaz, PHR, to the senior leadership team. Diaz was tasked with building a best in class human resources system.
Most of this training will be delivered through a program of one-on-one role coaching and alongside a curriculum of e-learning modules Auto Body World is developing in its online training portal: Auto Body World University. The goal is to ensure that every new employee, even those with backgrounds outside of collision repair, is prepared to be a successful contributor on an RPM team with little downtime. Plans are to have the first phase of this training program rolled out by the end of the first quarter of 2012.
Perhaps even more significant, Auto Body World also is investing in the development of a leadership training program to identify and cultivate leadership talent at every level of the organization. This program is specifically designed to help managers make the transition to becoming leaders through personal and professional growth. It also will provide new opportunities for employees with leadership potential to develop their path into leadership roles. Auto Body World plans to use the program to do far more than just keep RPM moving. It's going to develop the leaders who will chart the course of the business itself.
"Becoming the employer of choice centers around building a collaborative culture where employees take ownership of their teams and are fully engaged," says President Mark Turner. To track progress along that path, Auto Body World employees complete a quarterly employee engagement survey. Survey results are used to guide continuous improvements.
"It takes a lot of talented people to successfully lead an organization like ours. We need to give our employees a deeper sense of ownership of the business' direction and future," Turner says.
The company's leadership team believes that the new leadership program initiative mirrors the development path taken with RPM, both in terms of strategic priority and commitment to investment. Turner states, "What we are undertaking is nothing short of another reinvention of ourselves as an organization."
Turner is confident with this plan, noting that Auto Body World has always found its success through its people. "What our people do best is take care of the customer. The business will continue to grow if we remain focused on that," he says.
On the subject of that growth, Turner's plans are to continue building out the company's footprint in the Arizona market through the acquisition of existing shops. After the recent addition of the company's eighth location this summer, he says Auto Body World plans to add a number of locations in the next several quarters.
The business could be growing and changing in some other significant ways as well. Turner says any collision repair operation has two main assets it can leverage to create a competitive advantage: its people and its processes. With RPM in place and a comprehensive system for developing and growing its people on the way, Auto Body World will go where its newly empowered workforce takes it.
