Kara's Smash Repairs
Awards 2002Norton Best New Bodyshop National Finalist
The 'big blue building' as the residents of Wollongong have got to know Kara's Smash Repairs, is certainly a large shop, but despite this, space has not been wasted.
A laneway runs through the panel shop which combined with several roller doors means there is never any bottlenecks. Each panel bay is walled off from the next, providing a personal environment for each technician, who work on about three cars each at a time. "This is their space and so they have a bit of ownership, but with ownership comes responsibility, so they have to make sure they keep their space clean and tidy," said owner Greg Karakousis. The bays have their own airlines as well as parts storage and tools. Each bay has a large wheely bin at the end of it for the techs to place any packaging or other waste generated throughout the day. "I put pressure back onto the workers -- they have their own airlines, stands, equipment etc so they don't have to look around for anything and don't have any excuses for not getting on with it," said Karakousis. Three Car-O-Liners, including a 4WD machine and two hoists are used in the panel shop.
The paint shop has three R&I Zambesi spray booths and a five-bay prep area with Festo overhead boom arms for dry sanding as well as two mobile infra-red units. A total of 15 cars can be worked on in the paint shop at any one time, still with ample room to move vehicles in and out. The large holding yard (to be completely roofed over) will have an automatic gate to allow tow trucks in after hours.
The shop's base clientele are the insurers -- the shop is an NRMA Preferred Smash Repairer and is one of only three GIO recommended repairers in Wollongong. Karakousis said the NRMA Insurance PSR scheme has worked well for him so far; "We get very prompt payment -- three days and it's in our account. You can't complain about that," he said. The shop also services approximately 95 per cent of the taxis in Wollongong.
Using Auto-Quote, Kara's management are able to accurately cost each job and also monitor the performance of the staff. "Because we job cost everything, we know who is making us money and who is not," said Karakousis. The employees get a salary review every six months, based on their performance and Karakousis takes the team out on the town every now and then to say thank you for their effort in reaching set targets.
Business is good at Kara's and Karakousis puts a lot of this down to his fleet of 15 courtesy cars. "Our courtesy cars are almost brand new and we often get people asking about them because they are branded with our name. Our courtesy cars have definitely paid for themselves."
The business does not advertise, preferring to sponsor local sporting teams. "It's amazing how many times we get work from people who have played in teams against our teams, or are friends of people in our teams. It's the cheapest and best way to advertise in a place like Wollongong."
Who: Greg Karakousis
What: 25 employees
Car-O-Liner
Festo
R&I Zambezi
Spies Hecker
Where: Wollongong, NSW
When: Opened September, 2001