May 6, 2022—CIECA has announced the formation of a new Standards Development Committee focused on OEM repair procedures and build sheet data. All industry stakeholders, including CIECA and non-CIECA members, are invited to join.
“CIECA’s Emerging Technologies Committee was reviewing pain points in the collision industry and determined that OEM repair procedures and build sheet data needed to be addressed,” says Paulette Reed, CIECA’s technical project manager in a press release. “As a result, attendees proposed forming a new CIECA project committee to look at standardizing the data provided in OEM repair procedures and build sheet data.”
The new committee will be chaired by Mark Allen, Manager, Collision, Equipment and EV After Sales Service at Audi of America, and Phil Martinez, Technical Consultant at Mitchell International. Allen is an active CIECA committee member who participates in the Emerging Technologies Committee and has presented at the CIECA CONNEX Conference.
Martinez, CIECA’s current chairman, has participated and led the development of CIECA Standards since the organization was founded. For the past 27 years, he has represented Mitchell on the CIECA Board of Trustees and Executive Committees and chairs several committees.
“In recent years, the OEMs have taken a much more active role in the collision repair process and the industry,” says Paul Barry, CIECA’s executive director. “For shops to repair vehicles properly, they need easy access to repair procedures in a consistent fashion.”
Barry says that many in the industry see an opportunity to develop a more standardized approach to exchange repair procedure information and have asked CIECA to work with the industry to see what is possible.
“We are excited to assemble a committee of industry experts who can help guide the creation of standards that benefit all segments of the industry,” he says in the release.
The committee chairs encourage all interested industry stakeholders to attend the meetings.
“We need businesspeople as much as we need technical people to ensure we develop standards and solutions that meet the needs of our industry,” says Martinez.
