![]() ![]() More than that, the blueprint is the document that ties all parts of the shop together, says Erenbright. “Don’t get me wrong it needs special attention and should be accurate as possible, so the people looking at it aren’t surprised later.”īlueprinting, meanwhile, is the internal document, the action for thoroughly repairing, painting and preparing the vehicle for delivery to the customer. He reminds shops that the estimate is the external business document intended for customers and insurers. He says better blueprinting and estimating are the foundations to better business and rebuilding the foundations to both is key to fewer mistakes, increased efficiency and more revenue.Įrenbright says shops taking this journey should start by understanding the relationship between blueprinting and estimating. Those losses and increases are still there, says former shop owner and current consultant Mark Erenbright. These repairers don’t see any losses in efficiency or increases in cycle time that more extensive blueprinting would remedy. Still, other shops do only limited teardowns, typically believing the extra time and attention given to blueprinting is not rewarded with significant revenue. Others focus only on areas of significant damage. Some stay close to I-CAR’s intentions and do a full teardown of vehicle areas damaged or potentially damaged in a collision. I-CAR says the point of blueprinting is discovering what once would have been hidden damage before the actual repairs begin, thereby building accuracy and efficiency and eliminating costly oversights.Īs with lean processing, shops can differ widely in how they define and perform blueprinting. According to I-CAR, “Blueprinting means different things to different people, but blueprinting really is establishing a standard operating procedure (SOP) that allows for the discovery of all the damages before repairs begin.” There were tremendous differences in the amount of waste cut from one lean shop to another.Ī similar process has occurred with blueprinting. Ultimately, regardless of their investment in “going lean,” shops with all levels of lean operations began calling themselves lean. While some repairers would go all in on creating a lean process that was lean from start to finish, others would implement a limited number of lean initiatives. Shops began implementing a number of lean models. Since they couldn’t push insurers to budge on how much they were willing to pay for labor and parts, repairers began streamlining their operations, cutting waste wherever possible to build lean processes that would reduce costs and cycle times, pulling more money from every job and creating time to add more throughput. Lean processing has been a buzzword in the industry for 20 years, beginning when shops turned to Japanese kaizen methodology to squeeze additional revenue out of their shops. The evolution of their meanings provides a telling look at collision repairs, one that you should know as you look for ways to better execute your own blueprinting processes. Lean processing and blueprinting have an interesting relationship that goes well beyond how the two concepts tie into one another. Blueprinting leads to fewer mistakes, better efficiency, and more revenue."Blueprinting" means to establish a standard operating procedure to discover hidden damage, before repair begins."Lean processes" means to reduce costs and minimize cycle time.
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