Revv has found shops struggle the most when it comes to workflow, Adcock said. There are plenty of programs and technologies that help shops perform ADAS work, but identifying which calibrations need to be done, where to submit for approvals, and where to schedule service with a sublet can cause problems. 

“A lot of shops trying to get their arms around whether or not they can do ADAS in-house and trying to understand all the different pieces that are connected with that,” Adcock said. “We've got to completely shift our mindset on continuing to improve and really embracing a lot of that technology because it is going to continue to get thrown at us as far as like what the OEMs are producing…I think the challenge for shops is now we need to develop a new SOP, a new workflow, or enhance our current workflows because we're going to continue to get further away if we're not really embracing a lot of this new technology.” 

As vehicles enter the shop, Adcock listed the questions that need to be considered: 

• Can we do this in-house? 

• Do we need to sublet? 

• What does coordination look like? 

• What’s the communication like? 

• What’s the timeline? 

He shared the misconceptions he commonly sees around ADAS today, including the difference between a scan vs. calibration and not performing calibrations based on pre-scan results. 

“A scan's more on the diagnostic side, where the calibration is the execution of the actual, making sure the camera or radar is pointing in the right direction,” he said. “I think the biggest one is still that if there's no fault code, there's no light on the dashboard, there's no sign of any sort of trouble, that there's no calibration needed and I can tell you… that the majority of your calibrations are going to show up outside of a pre-scan. So, diagnostics is really one piece of the puzzle, but it's not really the entire decision-making process.” 

Dutra said they need to educate shops to follow a process from point A to Z that creates safe repair using OEM-recommended procedures to provide documentation and transparency in the repair process. Spears said organizations like CIECA can take the lead tackling these challenges. 

“We need to really understand how to remove those periods of uncertainty for people in the process,” Spears said. “But what we're really looking for now is how do we attach this transparency, this documentation, to a file?...Dan was talking about that we can produce some type of evidence that the right thing was done for the customer and that way, we've removed any of these periods of uncertainty; the tech knew they did the right thing and the customer’s very well assured that their car is back to OE conditions.” 

Dutra emphasized that it’s not about proving who is right or wrong; it’s about giving consumers confidence that systems designed to protect them are restored properly and will work as intended. 

“We need to put people over profit,” he said. “The profits will follow if we're doing the right thing. Every one of us in this industry plays a role in returning vehicles to the consumers after a collision. Increasingly, we're not just repairing vehicles…We're restoring technologies that help people avoid crashes, reduce injuries, and in many cases saves lives. That responsibility belongs to all of us.”