May 8, 2012—The Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) continued its efforts to develop OEM-based repair standards for the collision repair industry during a meeting in April with national repair associations, I-CAR, the OEM Roundtable and several auto manufacturers.
The SCRS said the meeting was a continuation of the announcement made by several prominent industry organizations in November 2011 recognizing OEM repair procedures as the official repair standard for collision repair processes. Since that announcement, the SCRS said more than 24 additional state, regional, national and international collision repair organizations have expressed support.
The April meeting further advanced the repair standards effort, and served as an opportunity to coordinate and establish a working agenda and actionable items to make it a reality, the SCRS said.
The work group that participated in the meeting established key contacts, refined the communications strategy, and developed agenda items and tasks to move forward with the effort, the SCRS said. Each of the organizations involved in the meeting exchanged internal reports on the matter, which included an update from I-CAR regarding its consideration to establish an industry council to help facilitate the implementation of industry repair standards.
The SCRS said future meetings, timelines and work products were also discussed after the meeting participants came to consensus on the next steps that are necessary to present the industry with technical repair standards.
"A clear takeaway from each of the meetings we have held is that the group indeed is powered with a clearly defined sense of purpose,” said Aaron Clark, chairman of the SCRS. "There is complete consensus that our task at hand is to ensure that collision repairers across the nation are able to easily access and attain the technical information that has been recognized as the standard of repair for our industry."
