AkzoNobel has unveiled a digital platform designed to help body shops streamline operations, improve efficiency, and increase profitability. Known as Refinish+, the system will be released to customers in Australia, North America and selected markets in Europe in the first half of 2024.
According to AkzoNobel, Refinish+ provides repair businesses with seamless access and a single sign-on to the company’s full suite of digital tools, including its MIXIT cloud-based colour retrieval application, Carbeat body shop production workflow application, a range of e-learning resources, and key product information. The platform also includes an option to integrate third-party software.
Suitable for independent collision repair centres and multi-site operators, AkzoNobel says Refinish+ is a customisable platform with a personalised user interface and home screen to enable customers to select the most important trackable KPIs for their business.
The company says the Insights dashboard is a key feature, giving a holistic view of performance and processes using comprehensive analytics across all operations to provide real-time insights on multiple metrics. This information helps data-driven decision-making, optimising business performance.
Body shop managers can also compare business performance against industry-leading benchmarks with Refinish+ Manager, allowing them to pinpoint areas of improvement and address challenges such as paint and material profitability, cycle times, energy usage and emissions.
“Skills shortage, spiralling costs and high repair complexity are the biggest challenges for body shops today,” said Patrick Bourguignon, Director of Automotive & Specialty Coatings at AkzoNobel. “Refinish+ has been developed to help our customers to work smarter and drive efficiency with our full range of AkzoNobel Vehicle Refinish digital solutions in one place. Plus, the platform’s tools, Refinish+ Insights and Refinish+ Manager, help to improve our customers’ business performance.”