The second Capricorn Futures Collide conference took place at the Gold Coast Collision Centre on Friday and Saturday 19 and 20 August.
The presentations were dominated by the brilliant Mike Anderson from Collision Advice in the US. Apparently fueled by many an energy drink he shared a plethora of technical insights, business strategies, leadership and teambuilding approaches, best practice and some damn entertaining stories.
Throughout his presentations there was an empty seat to represent the customer and how the industry always needs to do the right thing by that customer. He began with a story about his dad who suffered a lifetime of pain after his parachute didn’t deploy when he was in the army during the Vietnam war. His point being that the repair industry is packing the ‘parachute’ for their customers and it has to done right.
There were very few people from insurance companies at the conference which was probably just as well because Anderson stated over and over again that the fixed price repair model does not allow the repairer to look after the customer. He worries about what is being left out of the quote.
Anderson said that a growing trend in the US was more ‘mechanical’ on each job – which could include seatbelt inspections or diagnostics and recalibration. On the subject of seatbelt inspection he read out a lots of excerpts from owner handbooks of many common car models which stated that often the seatbelt should be replaced if the car had been in an accident or part of it should be replaced and said that repairers should be charging for inspecting seatbelts on every job.
There was a presentation from Neil Riley from Hella Australia about the increasing amount of encryption being employed by car makers to protect vehicle systems from being hacked and how this could be a problem from the repairer.
Over the course of the two days Anderson talked about various team management strategies including retention, training, recruitment and onboarding – “if you don’t grow your team you won’t grow your business,” he said. He argued that if you retain and grow your team then you will change the way that you compete.
There was a fascinating presentation from Scott Nargar from Hyundai around their hydrogen vehicle offering - looking at how the vehicle operates and what repairers would need to know in order to fix it safely.
Rebecca Witt of IBodyshop gave a presentation on how two new features of the workshop management work – inventory and automated parts invoice reconciliation. Dave Crook, collision product manager of GM talked about their trade club, how to access repair methods and the importance of using OEM parts.
Anderson came back on stage to talk about destructive weld testing, how and why it is so essential and how many OEM demand it as part of the repair process. He was joined on stage by Geoff Mitchell of I-CAR who went into more detail on why welds fail.
Anderson finished the day by discussing the importance and meaning of 100% disassembly.
Around 200 people attended the first day and there was a networking drinks session after day one of the conference closed.
It was a shame that so many delegates opted not to attend on day 2 as it was another excellent day.
Anderson kicked off talking about diagnostic trouble codes, scanning and calibrations. This was followed by a panel called Transformation of the Landscape which was essentially about the use of OEM repair methods, rising costs and changes in the industry which included the introduction of Motor Vehicle Information Scheme on 1 July. (Please take part in our short survey on your experience with this.) The panel included Kathy Zdravevski from VACC; Lesley Yates from AAAA, Marcello Riotto MTAQ; George Manos from IAG and Matt Cooper from AMA Group.
American diagnostic and calibration company Repairify is planning to launch in Australia soon. Cris Hollingsworth discussed the growth of recalibration and outlined his company's credentials. Their system can undertake remote calibrations and diagnostics using OEM information.
There was another panel discussing how to reinstate an industry standard as AMBRA shop grading has failed to launch. There was a consensus from the panel which was moderated by Rob Mildenhall and included Peter McMahon from Car Craft; Mike Killen from Killen's Smash Repairs, Stuart Faid from Fix Auto, Gary Wilcox from MONIT, Jason Trewin from I-CAR as well as Mike Anderson that further work would be carried out to achieve an industry standard.
The conference wrapped with another networking drinks session with all delegates agreeing that Mike Anderson was an amazing presenter with so many valuable insights to share.