As I write this, NACE 2001 has just entered the history books. As you will see reading our extensive news coverage of the show, the event had better attendance than most would have believed given the current economic and security-conscious climate.
NACE provides the collision repair community with an opportunity to meet and discuss issues large and small that impact both the business and practice of the collision repairer's art.
This NACE was my 15th, with my first in Las Vegas way back in 1987 when I was a 19-year-old technician. For me, NACE is a welcome opportunity to talk and meet face-to-face with many readers from around the country that I would not normally get a chance to know. It is also an opportunity to catch up with folks I only get to see this one week each year.
But more than that, NACE is an opportunity for me to get a better understanding of what is going on in repair facilities nationwide. This year, most of the talk centered around collision repair volume that has been decidedly fickle. Repairer facility operators overwhelmingly talked about sales being variable throughout 2001 with some months showing double digit increases during 2000, but other months recording equally down percentages. This is especially troubling given the fact that the NACE attendee typically outperforms the average shop in terms of sales improvement. If the larger shops are seeing high variability, the small and mid-size facilities are probably seeing more down sales months.
Which brings us to the next biggest concern that attendees talked about at great length-the growing importance of insurance company referrals and the implications for shops large and small alike.
There is a growing frustration from shops of all sizes about increasing insurance company demands to both improve cycle time and decrease severity. These sentiments were expressed by both smaller and large facilities, including some of the largest local and regional multiple-shop operators. Granted, insurance company efforts to control the cost of the claims they pay was also high up on the list of issues talked about at the first NACE I attended, but the level and frequency of concern expressed this year was much higher than in recent years. The triumvirate of circumstance, soft volume coupled with an insurer severity push and the prospect of widespread insurance company investment and ownership in repair facilities, is increasing repairer's sensitivity to an ever-present concern about the future prospects of collision repair shops.
How are those shops dealing with this ever-present, big picture issue? It appears that interest in association and industry forums will increase throughout the next year as repairers seek to promote their cause in the face of the pressures upon their business as detailed earlier. And as usual, they are digging deeper into their vast pool of knowledge and experience to find improvements to both their processes and techniques to make themselves more efficient than the shop down the street. They do this because they know it provides them with a better foundation for survival and success.
The oft quoted adage that if you "learn just one thing that you can take back to your shop, you'll more than pay for the costs of travel and attendance," at an industry event is one reason NACE continues to draw such a wide variety of shop operators from across the country and the world.
One Small Step
One small way we hope to help individual shop operators find ideas small and large over the next year is to provide space in ABRN for tips and tricks that improve quality, productivity or a combination of both. Many technical and business improvements, whether new tools or processes, that are commonplace today, had their origin on the shop floor or office with an owner or technician faced with a problem they couldn't solve unless they did something different. If you have one of these ideas, please send them to us at the address below.Each month, our staff will pick through the tips and techniques you submit for those that solve common problems and provide the greatest impact to the typical shop's operation. The best tips will be published in ABRN and the person submitting those chosen for publication will receive $100. In addition, and more importantly, the person whose tips are chosen will be entered into a contest with the chance to win a trip to next year's NACE in Dallas.
Here's to a safe and prosperous 2002.