The Thatcham experience

Thatcham was established 40 years ago to inject science and reliable data into the car repair industry, previously funded solely by the UK insurance industry, and now also by its commercial ventures. Its repair methods are about logic and efficiency rather than cost cutting.

On a tour of Thatcham's facilities, the first stop is the Repair Technology Centre (RTC), which is responsible for researching the vehicles for which Thatcham develops repair methods. It is divided between escribe content and Repair Research work.

Vehicles are selected based on the highest volume cars and the ones with the most accidents. The vehicle manufacturer data is reviewed and the panels ordered in, which helps identify anomalies and pricing errors. Project Engineers for each vehicle are all experienced in input and verification of repair data.

escribe combines both panel, and mechanical and trim data for efficient multiple-panel use. The engineers are able to add in details such as special tools or processes required, and consumable specifications and quantities. The resulting data should be consistent throughout, regardless of the vehicle make or model, or the type of repairer.

Alternatives are suggested for overlapping panels. Thatcham's future vehicles engineer, Andrew Hooker explains:

“Rather than removing a covering panel that would require the rear suspension, fuel tank, rear seats and many other components being removed, they have recommended a section for the cover panel that allows access to replace the floor in a relatively straightforward way. Not only does this avoid the car being ‘written off’ as too expensive to repair in many markets, it leaves the car safer to work on and to move about the repair shop.”

The Repair Research work is where engineers focus on specific technology challenges that would delay escribe work, often working on a specific vehicle in conjunction with the manufacturer to solve the problem. This could be paint related, a challenging panel replacement or difficult join, or perhaps looking at an inclusion of a new material.

“At this point I often show visitors one or more of our validation cars,” Hooker says. “This serves as an introduction to our crash test facility.

“What visitors can see is a car repaired with our escribe methods that is then taken across the road to our New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) team who put the vehicle through a crash test that is identical to the original NCAP test. That way we can compare the crash safety performance of a repaired car with that of the original test to prove our method works.”

In the lab, visitors are firstly shown the Hyper-G sled, where car seats are tested to assess and improve performance in avoiding injuries, and then the impact testing part of the laboratory.

“We are an NCAP member and Thatcham is proud of the positive effect NCAP has had globally in reducing the likelihood of someone being killed in a car. Car design has got better and better at keeping occupants safer, and even today’s cheaper cars are stronger and safer than before and manufacturers use the recognised safety rating as a positive advert for their vehicle.

“Our aim is to manage the repair process so that repairers can keep pace with the consumer and legislative technology advances. As a not-for-profit organisation we have to manage on very tight budgets and to be very careful controlling our costs, and we know that insurers and crash repair shops have very tight budgets too. All we ask is that repairers look to the future and work with us so that we can safely and successfully manage repairs.

“We have a clear strategy and objective to reduce deaths and injuries on the roads. For the damage to cars we share your desire to see you repair them successfully, rather than see them scrapped. And an efficient repair that’s safe and ‘right first time’ is good for the insurance company and good for the repair shop owner, and reassuring for the customer to know that Australia and the UK at least has skilled, competent and informed repair industries.”