EP04 Materials: Increasing Role of Collaboration

Our three materials experts explain how they believe the automotive industry is working more collaboratively, upstream, to design for collision repair with the new advanced materials that make up today’s vehicles. In addition, they also share what we can learn from this collaboration between the automotive companies and material producers. One thing all of our panelists agree on loud and clear is the increasing role of collaboration and the importance of everyone working together as a team. As materials in the collision repair industry continuously advance at an accelerated pace, there will be new ways to collaborate to achieve superior performance. There is no room for silos. Everyone needs to have a seat at the table and communicate with each other in order to ensure complete, quality and safe repairs.

The panelists also offer some insights for what colleagues in the industry can learn from the collaboration already taking place between material producers and automotive companies, including the timing of delivery repair procedures and reading through the recommended procedures for each model in the OEM guidebook - really sitting down and thinking it through - and providing a road map on how to do the job right.