Second generation owner Aaron Scagliotta told Paint & Panel how using Colorvation has radically improved workflow and had a beneficial culture change in the paint shop.
While the primary reason Scagliotta moved to AkzoNobel was its A-Coat program, when it was suggested that Gino’s dived straight into using Colorvation he readily agreed.
“It appealed to me because I thought we can go straight to the latest technology,” he said. Scagliotta says that Colorvation is quite simply foolproof: “It’s a standardised process that they follow.
They go to the vehicle, they go through a set of polishing steps, then they press a button. They mix, they do a spray out card and then if its not an exact match they use the spectro again for the spray out.
This process has meant that Ginos has built up its own colour library, “The computer will tell the painters that we already have a spray out, they can take the card over to the car and say ‘yeah that’s perfect’ and off they go.
As the library develops the colour matching process becomes even faster.
“Because its such a standard procedure it’s taken a lot of the skill out of colour matching which means even the apprentices can match successfully - it gives them the confidence to know that it works.
The mantra here is that if you follow the steps you can’t go wrong.
And that’s a true reflection of what I see in the workshop – I’m not repainting cars because the colour is wrong. They’re going through once and properly and its allowing for better procedures that filter through the whole repair process.
“When the vehicle lands in the shop, quite often I’ll see the apprentices going up to the car in the panel stage and matching the colour so that everything is prepared and ready to go when it arrives in the paint shop, so the work flows quicker.
So has using Colourvation really impacted on workflow?“Dramatically,” Scagliotta said.
“It’s halved rework to do with colour matching. It has also created an environment where, if you follow the steps and there’s an issue then you just follow another procedure to resolve it. “Is my volume increasing?
Let’s put it this way, a year ago I had exactly the same amount of work and I couldn’t get through it, now I’m running out.
“That is because of a combination of factors – the A-Coat learnings, using Colorvation and also the 1Q1 workflow management system.
Culture change “Now my painters are working as a team. It’s not like before where one guy has one job and he works through it till the end.
Now one will be doing the prep work, one the colour matching and one the painting.
Colorvation has given them the confidence to trust each other – they know that’s it’s not a person’s opinion about colour it’s about fact. The transition Scagliotta says the transition to Colorvation was seamless.
“Big kudos to AkzoNobel, they sent a whole team of technical sales reps from all over Australia to help us with the transition for a week.
They educated the team and held their hand through the process and it was really smooth. It was out with the old and in with the new. They guaranteed me no decrease in throughput during the transition and they were right.”