Phil Munday restarts from level land

Shop Profile

After bulldozing his old shop, experienced repairer Phil Munday had the chance to build a new shop from the ground up.
Phil Munday has owned panel shops in and around the Melbourne suburb of Kilsyth since 1977 when, aged only 19, he opened his first. He entered what must have been a desperately crowded market. In nearby Bayswater there were no less than 63 repairers vying for business.
At one stage Munday had four shops on the go, but found that the extra income was not worth the inevitable loss of lifestyle ? especially has he had six children to look after. He eventually reduced his holding to one shop, in Mt Dandenong Road, where he has been since 1992.
Last year Munday decided it was time to rebuild the shop. He drew and redrew plans, listened to advice, looked at equipment specs and put in a building development application. He moved his shop to temporary premises in October 2004 and moved back into a brand new shop in February 2005 without missing a beat.
"I decided the best way to keep the building moving along was to become an owner builder," Munday says. "I got terrific cooperation from the contractors and from my own staff at what was a difficult time for all of us."
With a staff of 15 turning out more than 40 cars a week, the pressure was on to re-equip to maintain existing business and allow for growth.
Where many an owner in Munday's position would have opted for two ovens, he installed one extra long (nine metres) Seetal full downdraft with a filter media floor. The downdraft air system extends to the floors of two adjoining prep bays with infra red drying arms. The combination means that a full car plus several panels can be sprayed and dried virtually at the same time. This gives the production equivalent of two or more ovens.
"People will tell you that with one oven you'll achieve 100 per cent efficiency but as you add more ovens your efficiency drops, more or less in percentage steps," Munday says. "I agree with that."
When it came to measurement, alignment and inverter welding, Munday chose Car-o-liner in all three cases, citing the advantage of compatibility between them as well as their proven quality and service.
The shop layout is maximised for work flow, with an in and an out door so that doubling back is virtually eliminated. There are four assembly bays, eight paint related bays and eight panel bays. They service four beaters, four painters, one assembler, one detailer (who works in a separate building) one cleaner and four in the office ? including Phil Munday.
Paint of choice is Standox ? which has been with Munday's business for many years. Recently he took delivery of a Standox Spectrometer which reads paint colours. The data is sent to Standox online, and a mixing formula comes back within 30 seconds. While the result is not always totally accurate, it is close enough to be easily adjusted through tinting.