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Symach Names Stephen Healer UK Sales Manager

Symach has promoted Stephen Healer to UK Sales Manager as part of a larger plan to open a Symach UK subsidiary within next year. The company hopes that the new UK office will “reinforce commercial structure in the UK” to give effective on-site support to customers and provide timely responses to their needs.

“With Stephen’s extensive experience in the coatings industry, he will be instrumental in helping Symach showcase its complete body shop solution,” said Osvaldo Bergaglio, Symach CEO. “He will work closely with body shops across the UK to demonstrate how they can shift from using the conventional repair process to Symach’s unique FixLine process, which drastically reduces the cost of repairs.”

Healer joined the industry in a temporary role as a van sales representative for a regional coatings distributor over 25 years ago. He worked at Nitrotherm Spray as National Sales Manager in the UK prior to joining Symach.

“I quickly developed a passion for the refinish industry and greatly value the relationships I have formed over the years,” said Healer. “I’m excited to join Symach’s international team and help collision repair facilities across the UK learn more about Symach’s unique approach repairing vehicles based on the FixLine process.

“Over the last decade, the accident repair industry in the UK has declined by around 20 per cent to just over 3000 body shops, leading to a shortage in repair capacity. We also see a shortage in skilled staff, specifically painters, contributing to increased staffing costs.”

This will lead to an increase in overall repair costs, according to Healer.

“As repair volumes decrease and costs increase, this is applying pressure on body shops to reduce their costs and increase productivity,” he said. “I look forward to building new relationships with these groups and demonstrating how Symach equipment and technology is perfectly aligned to help them be successful now and, in the future.”

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Business, Business, Business

Canadian Body Shop Uses Symach In New Location

Symach has announced that CARSTAR Fredericton in New Brunswick, Canada has opened a new location utilising Symach’s complete body shop solution.

“When you make a deal with Symach, you’re not just buying body shop equipment,” said Steve Knox, General Manager of CARSTAR Fredericton. “You are buying an entirely different business model.”

“Symach equipment is designed to drastically reduce the cost of repairs and increase efficiency,” said Osvaldo Bergaglio, CEO of Symach. “We helped CARSTAR Fredericton set up a new body shop using the FixLine repair process, which will help the business increase throughput and reduce labour cost per repair.”

CARSTAR Fredericton operates two locations and is owned by Roy Kennedy. Since installing the Symach equipment at the new location in July, Knox said they’ve already experienced more efficiency at the repair facility.

“One of the biggest benefits is time,” said Knox. “A conventional shop might schedule two-and-a-half to three days to complete a 10- to 11-hour job. With Symach equipment, that same vehicle can now be repaired by lunchtime the day it’s dropped off.

“It’s not through harder work or more labour-intensive ways of doing things, but through the smart use of their equipment. It’s incredible.”

Knox said that cars built today are not the same as the ones built 20 or 30 years ago. Because they are so much more sophisticated, he said it’s important to set up a repair facility that can meet those needs, and Symach equipment has helped them do that.

The CARSTAR Fredericton team said that they are impressed with Symach’s SprayTron paint booth as it helps pull everything through the paint booth instead of having everything pushed toward the booth.

“The SprayTron is one of the industry’s newest generations of spray booths on the market,” said Bergaglio. “It is high-performing, automated and it is built with the best burner, the best fans and the best material available. It can work as a conventional spray booth using hot air from the burner or with radiant waves using a robot and will typically produce 8-10 paint cycles per day.”

“When you deal with Symach, they build a shop that is so visually beautiful that you want every customer to come in through the back door, rather than the front,” said Knox. “It’s gorgeous; it looks like a showroom of their equipment but at the same time, it’s our actually functioning shop!”

Every stall has its own hoist that is flush with the floor. When it is raised, the car is at chest-level, so technicians no longer have to kneel during a repair.

“Many of the older guys in this industry have problems with their knees and backs,” said Knox. “The Symach equipment allows technicians to work at a comfortable level so this is no longer an issue.”

Over the last month, the team has been in training mode and becoming more comfortable with the equipment and the business flow.

“I can see now why those shops we talked to have that outlook,” said Knox. “It’s true. Everything Symach’s marketing says it can do, it can.”

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Symach And DCR Systems Form Strategic Partnership

Symach has announced a strategic partnership with DCR (Diversified Collision Repair) Systems. As part of the new collaboration, the two companies will combine their strengths to build what Symach CEO Osvaldo Bergaglio refers to as “tomorrow’s workshop.”

“It’s clearly a relationship that will allow us to develop tomorrow’s workshops and utilise the strengths of each company not only to put together the ‘super shop’ but also the ‘super team’ to operate it,” said Michael Giarrizzo, CEO and President of DCR Systems. “It’s exciting to be on the cutting edge and be able to work with another forward-thinking company.”

“DCR uses a fantastic process-based production system that standardises and streamlines each procedure and eliminates many of the inefficiencies associated with auto body repairs,” said Bergaglio. “It is very complementary to the Symach system and we are really excited about working together.

Founded in 2001, Symach offers a complete range of body shop equipment for the collision repair industry, including its unique FixLine repair process, SPAP (Symach Paint Application Process) and DryTronic robotic technology for drying paint in a less than a minute.

DCR Systems was founded in 2004 and is owned by Giarrizzo and partners. The Ohio and Atlanta-based business sets up accident repair facilities based on lean manufacturing principles for automotive dealerships looking to outsource their operations.

Moving forward, Symach plans to sell new collision repair facilities in the USA market that will operate under the DCR standard model. In addition, DCR Systems will offer a turn-key franchise-like model for dealers. In both scenarios, Symach equipment will be utilised and training will be provided.

When Giarrizzo first met Bergaglio a couple of years ago, he said he was impressed with the robotics technology being designed, manufactured and sold by the Italian-based company. The two business owners spent time in body shops set up by DCR Systems as well as some recent installations by Symach in Canada.

The business owners said they soon discovered the commonalities of the two companies. For example, the DCR System’s proprietary model involves the layout of the rail system, which allows vehicles to move through the paint line. This is similar to what Symach does as well in its layout process.

“It was really eye-opening seeing what the company has already done,” said Giarrizzo. “We started to feel the synergy between the two companies.”

Both Symach and DCR Systems say they focus on continuous workflow in the body shop and a process-centered environment. The goal is to ensure the team understands the required pace so that the steps of the process are interdependent and must work in sequence. The desired outcome is to have all vehicles go through the shop uninterrupted and ensure they are repaired in a very predictable amount of time.

“DCR Systems specialises in fostering a team environment with very strict validation stages that maximises touch time and minimises waste,” said Bergaglio. “It’s about speed and first-time quality, so nothing has to be redone.”

“As an industry, we can never stop seeking improvement not only in technology, but also in the way we do work,” said Giarrizzo. “This is truly tomorrow’s technology and groundbreaking for the industry. The folks at Symach are innovators – they are engineers and inventors and so are we, making it a powerful relationship.”

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Business, Business, Business

Symach Partners With Alphabet Italia Fleet Management

Alphabet Italia Fleet Management SpA, the BMW Group’s car rental company, has chosen Symach as a technology partner to support its Alphabet Point collision shop network in achieving quality objectives in repair, production efficiency and speed of delivery to the customer.

Symach Srl is a leading company in collision shop processes and layouts in addition to being a manufacturer of body work equipment. Having already installed equipment in more than 90 shops all over the world with the FixLine production process, Symach will supply Alphabet’s network with its technological know-how and customised solutions for the design of new collision repair shops and the upgrade of existing ones. This will also include training on Symach repair processes.

“Alphabet is an excellent partner with whom we share the objectives to be achieved in terms of quality, efficiency and speed that are the foundation of Symach philosophy and process,” said Osvaldo Bergaglio, Symach Founder and President.

“The process, the layout and the technology of Symach can allow the collision shops of the Alphabet Point network to easily obtain the results that Alphabet expects.”

Roberto Sticca, Operations Director of Alphabet Italia Fleet Management S.p.A. said: “The partnership with Symach is complementing the one already consolidated with AkzoNobel / Sikkens and represents a further step forward in the research path of service excellence in terms of both performance and strategy integration. I am convinced that this partnership will bring great benefits to all the parties involved, because the know-how in product development and the efficiency of the processes are key factors for the quality of the service we want to offer our customers.”

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Symach Installs FixStation Equipment At Mervyn’s The Body Shop In Canada

Symach announced the installation of its FixLine system at Mervyn’s The Body Shop in Kelowna, British Columbia.

The FixLine system consists of a layout and repair process that combines Symach’s patented Drytronic technology, specialized robots and the Symach Paint Application Process (SPAP) painting cycle.

“The FixStation is a modern and innovative solution that will ensure high productivity for Mervyn’s The Body Shop,” said Osvaldo Bergaglio, CEO of Symach. “The hybrid solution works as a spray booth and a workstation in one area and will allow one of Mervyn’s technicians to perform three to four repairs a day without moving the vehicle.”

Established more than 40 years ago in the Okanagan area of British Columbia, Mervyn’s prides itself on providing the highest quality repair and customer satisfaction.

“It’s all about staying on top and being the best we can be for us and for the customer,” said Jason Agostino, owner of Mervyn’s. “Symach’s equipment is helping us fulfill that.”

Mervyn’s The Body Shop is a very old Kelowna company purchased by Peter Facinek in the early 2000s. Agostino came on board as the body shop manager soon after and became co-owner of the business. Since then, he has run the shop on a day-to-day basis with Facinek as a consultant and silent partner. Agostino’s wife, Rosy, also helps in the business.

The owners always planned to open a new location and over the last several years, they have been working on the design.

During this time, they found out about Symach equipment from attending an AkzoNobel Acoat Selected performance group meeting.

“We are continually investigating newer and better ways to repair and finish damaged vehicles to ensure that customers are 100 per cent satisfied,” he said. “We learned that Symach builds exactly what we were look for,” said Agostino.

Facinek first went to Ontario to visit another collision repair facility using the equipment and then traveled to Italy to see Symach’s operation first-hand. Following that trip, Mervyn’s decided to purchase Symach’s FixLine system, two Fly dry robots and one easy dry robot in addition to five lifts.

“We already had the layout designed for the new location,” said Agostino. “Symach modified it to fit the equipment and we decided to buy the whole package rather than try to piecemeal everything together.”

It was installed in November 2017 and Symach trained all of the technicians. It has been operational since February.

“We’ve always used team systems and run a processed-centered environment using other tools, so it was a smooth transition for us to use Symach’s quality equipment,” said Agostino.

The baking equipment uses a slightly different application, but he has found that it has been working out well.

Although they are still in their infancy stages using Symach’s equipment, they have found it has already helped with cycle time in the shop. “What used to take us one and a half hours, now takes 20 minutes,” said Agostino. “You don’t have to wait for dry times. They told us that, but you never really believe it until you see it.”

Since installing the equipment, Agostino said it has helped the shop stay cleaner and it’s a nicer environment for his 13 employees to work, many of whom have worked there long-term. By installing the lifts, it has also been easier on the body technicians. Overall, he said has been impressed with the dependability and predictability of the equipment. “When I’m painting a vehicle, I know it will be ready at a certain time,” he said.

Mervyns offers a lifetime written guarantee on all of the work completed. “An important component of this is ensuring our paint booths and spraying equipment are state-of-the-art,” said Agostino. “We are committed to leading the collision repair industry in technical skills, equipment and quality of work and Symach equipment is helping us do that.”

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Symach Expands Production Capacity With New TRUMPF Equipment

Symach is designing a cutting-edge 3000-square-metre technical department in a facility at Calderara di Reno in Bologna, Italy. It will be equipped with a complete TRUMPF machining line including a TruPunch 3000 Sheetmaster machine for cutting sheet metal and loading, unloading and selecting parts, as well as a TruBend Series 5000 bending machine.

“TRUMPF is the world leader in sheet metal processing automation,” said Osvaldo Bergaglio, owner and president of Symach. “We are making a significant investment of approximately 1.5 million euros in this equipment, which will provide Symach with the best tooling for optimising production and having direct control over the quality of our products.” In addition, Bergaglio said it will increase production capacity by almost five times, allowing Symach to reduce delivery times and costs, as well as improve on quality assurance of the company’s product.

Machine installation is scheduled for January 2018 and the department is expected to be fully operational in March 2018. Currently, departmental staff are completing training at the TRUMPF headquarters in Milan, Italy, to learn how to best utilise the machines.

Symach said it has specialised in body shop design, construction and installation of its state-of-the-art technology and equipment worldwide since 2010. “We take pride in supporting our customers in the customisation of their bodywork and in staff training,” said Bergaglio. “We plan to continue investing in technology and product research and focus on continuous innovation as a key to success.”

There are now more than 70 customers around the world using the Symach FixLine model, working closely with Symach consultants to ensure their business goals are met. Symach said the new department marks a further evolution of its history in the direction of customer satisfaction.

“We support our customers in the achievement of increased production, efficiency, delivery of service and their profitability goals,” said Bergaglio. “The attestations of gratitude and friendship that come from them continue to give us the motivation and dedication to continue doing our work well.”

Bergaglio added that the spirit and mission that drive Symach demonstrate how the company will provide tangible innovation to the collision repair industry in the years to come.

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