Improving Paint Shop Performance
In too many facilities, the paint shop is generally dirty and unkempt. Because of the frantic pace at certain times, painters and preppers often become sloppy. The rationale is that they don't have time to clean up after themselves, but the reality is that they cannot afford to not clean up after themselves. A dirty, sloppy environment is more difficult to operate efficiently in.Subliminal messages are also abundant within any work environment. A sloppy environment indicates a lack of precision, while a neat and orderly shop sends the message that the management team and the employees care. But it's the messy one that's typical.The two cultures existing within the respective facilities are also markedly different. Consulting visits to hundreds of clients in the past 16 years have shown that cleanliness is the one factor that impacts efficiency and morale.The physical environment also plays an important role in paint shop productivity. To whip your shop into shape, you must look at three components-light, air and sound.Lighting
Just think about the power of good lighting. Light is associated with activity, and darkness is associated with slumber. Unfortunately, most work areas are too dark.The amount of light in the repair facility should be measured. Light levels are quantifiable using widely available incident light meters available from commercial lighting supply stores and photographic equipment suppliers. In the general shop area, a minimum of 90 foot candles at the working surface of the car is recommended. Inside the booth, 100 foot candles is the minimum acceptable light level. Very few paint departments meet this specification.A lighting engineer can help you achieve these minimum standards by visiting the shop, assessing your situation and making recommendations.Metal-halide lights are preferred in extremely high ceiling or roof level situations. The more common fluorescent lights usually need to be lowered to a height of not more than 12 ft. above the floor. Floor and wall coatings also make a big difference because they increase the reflective ability of these surfaces and improve the efficiency of the lights.Air Quality
Individuals who are surrounded by good air are more productive, and their morale is higher. But air quality is one part of the environment that needs to be improved in most shops. Generally, ventilation needs improvement in most repair facilities. Reversed exhaust fans, air cleaners and air make-up systems are all available for commercial installation. An air make-up unit can also serve as the heating system in climates requiring heat. The idea is that it is not enough to have only an exhaust system that creates a vacuum. Make-up air creates a slightly pressurized environment that enables rapid disbursement of airborne particulates.Sound
Noise is a problem in many facilities. Pieces of equipment such as compressors, booths, fans, sanders, vacuums and radios are common sources of annoying noises. The first rule of a good shop design is to put as many pieces of noisy equipment outside as possible, especially air compressors and air make-up units for booths. The second rule is to create sound enclosures for the equipment. While rotary screw compressors are great because they make very little noise and do not usually require enclosures, vacuum sanding pumps are noisy and should be enclosed.Workflow Systems
Keeping noise to a minimum is important, but maintaining consistent workflow systems is important in creating desirable, repeatable work habits. This is particularly important for maintenance tasks. For this reason, a written maintenance schedule is essential, as are the following:Maintain a log sheet for changing of booth filters.Institute a "clean as you go" system for keeping the paint bench and mixing lids clean.Implement a basic rule that no can is to be put back on the mixing bank unless the lid is wiped clean.Ensure the mixing bench is cleaned after every mixing job. You cannot have the attitude that you can clean it up at the end of the day.Clean sprayguns to new condition every time they are used.Scrub the shop floor on schedule daily.Never test a paint gun by spraying on the walls or sides of a booth.Keep logs of "no buff" or "dirt free" paint jobs. (This helps because you are now keeping score of the positive instead of the negative.)Schedule booth time with great forethought.Organization
Most repairers consider the paint shop to be a bottleneck, when in fact, it is normally a symptom of other problems, such as scheduling, within the shop. The average metal shop is actually the culprit when trying to run an organized paint department. If proper attention is given to metal shop scheduling, cars are ready for the paint shop in a regular and timely manner. But all too often, very little attention is given to metal shop deadlines, and cars are delivered to the paint shop with very little time left to meet the promised delivery date.To prevent this, you must pay attention to metal shop out times. When the work order is given to the metal technician, he or she should be given an expected completion date, not just the final delivery date. It is not uncommon for paint shops to work extended hours toward the end of the work week and yet have little or nothing to do on Monday and Tuesday.With metal shop completion times understood, consider the following when organizing your paint shop schedule for the day:the number of cars to be painted today;the number of cars to be painted tomorrow;the priority of the cars today. (In other words, if you have seven cars to paint today, you should prioritize them from No. 1 through No. 7.)When you send too many cars to the booth at one time, quality suffers because the preparation of the car is rushed and the paint is slapped on because of a desire to get the next car into the booth. Morale also suffers because the painters often feel they are expected to work as long as it takes to get the work out the door, even though the metal technicians often leave at 5 p.m.-whether the car is done or not.Booth Time and Flexible Hours
Despite your efforts, there will be times when a high volume of paint work is going to be a reality. This is where flexible paint shop hours come into play. Basically, painting cars during an extended shift reduces the bottleneck in the booth. One shop that has three painters and only one booth used flexible paint shop hours to its advantage. Painter No. 1 came to work at 5 a.m. Painter No. 2 arrived at 8 a.m., and Painter No. 3 started at 11 a.m. Each painter then worked for at least eight hours. Consequently, the booth had a technician working in it for at least 14 hours per day.Obviously, you can more comfortably process more cars in 14 hours than you can in a typical eight-hour shift, and the painters like it because they are not fighting with each other over booth time. Additional benefits to overlapping shifts are the need for communication between painters and the fact that they are all at work together for part of the day.Organizing your paint shop takes a lot of time and thought. For your paint shop to be all it can be, you must pay attention to basic physical details such as light, sound and air. The workflow and organization are just as important. It is also essential to examine other departments within your business and make sure they are not making it impossible to ever be efficient within the paint shop. Finally, consider altering your employees' work shifts to create more available booth time. And after all of these measures, perhaps your vision of body shop heaven can be a reality for you and your employees.