Tankard’s Panel Service
When Will Hood goes to his remotely located computer to see how his Melbourne bodyshop is doing, he is confident Tankards Panel Service (TPS) is in good hands in suburban Ringwood.
It is a credit to him that he wants the kudos for the success of Tankards to go to his staff. While he is in the Keiwa Valley, in northeast Victoria, tending to his 300 hectare property, he knows that the bodyshop will continue to attract a quality-seeking clientele.
Hood is in Ringwood three days a week and at the farm for the rest of the time. Even in these dire economic times the shop doesn’t just tick over, it hums, and that’s because of the team he has built. His silent partner is Peter Champion.
Shop staff includes Sam Atkinson and wife Leisa, with Sam doing the estimating and managing whilst Hood is away in the country. Leisa shares the job of book keeping and administration.
Then there’s Graeme Harrower, workshop manager for nearly the past six years with vast experience in quality shops over 44 years. Harrower has panel beating experience and once had a shop of his own.
TPS has two apprentices, a fourth year spray painter and a fourth year panel beater. “Both are going along very nicely and then there’s our great team of tradesmen painters, spray painters and other support staff,” Hood says.
The shop is a slick operation with an ample supply of up-to-date equipment. Hood’s focus is essentially on the staff he has employed. “I recruited well and I have entered the awards because it is for the team here that I want to win.”
This was borne out in the awards inspection when Hood sat the AP&P team down for a bit of a grilling before they were allowed to finish the job.
TPS serves the Melbourne eastern suburbs but that is by no means the limit of their geographic clientele. Hood has been in Ringwood since l997 after leaving Blackburn Motor Body. His training has been as a panel beater and he raised the money to take over Tankards which had been in the body repair business since the late 1950s under the guidance of Mike Tankard and later Bruce Bennett, a previous award winner.
Tankards derives 95 per cent of its work from corporate, late model vehicles but attracts its fair share of prestige vehicles as well. TPS is a recommended repairer for Lumleys/Wesfarmers, Custom Fleet and AAMI and also repairs vehicles for a number of other insurers.
Just-in-time management is adopted in the parts area run by Stephanie Williams who has the balance of time and storage down to a fine art.
In AP&P’s rounds of the bodyshops, especially in Victoria for the awards judging, it was interesting to note increasing roles played by women. Tankards exemplifies this. Less women are now confined to the white collar occupations. They can be found painting and panel beating or, in the case of Tankards, parts interpretation.
Like other members of the Tankards work crew, “everyone has a say in how the place is run,” Hood says. “My people take care of the business and they know how things can be improved and changes made, so I like to listen to them and implement the changes.”
On those days when Hood and his wife Monika are packing the kids (daughter 11 and son eight) off to the 35-strong pupil school at Tawonga, Hood can go online and see how things are at the bodyshop.
Whilst the kids are doing their lessons and perhaps skiing on school sports outings Hood may also have the chance to fish. But, as he puts it, none of this would be possible without the substantial backing of the Ringwood team.