WASHINGTON, DC — Sustainability is key for businesses to be future proof, and a new AkzoNobel tool, slated for release by yearend, can help shops determine areas for improvement.
AkzoNobel has been a driving force behind industry sustainability — including creating the Sustainability Leadership Symposium, Sustainability Education Challenge Grant, the Process Centered Environment approach and the FIT Sustainability Award, among others — and sees it as an imperative, not an option, in ensuring success.
Society mega trends including global climate change, recurring shortages of raw materials, world population growth and social unrest, among others, really highlight to need to achieve business sustainability.
AkzoNobel follows a Blue Ocean approach, which focuses on finding opportunities in new ways. “In this process, businesses are more than a means of simply providing wealth to owners and shareholders. They are social organs that provide work for people and integrate seamlessly with the ecosystem while also creating wealth for owners,” said Bill Orr, communications manager with AkzoNobel during the North American Performance Group Meeting in Washington, DC, in September.
By prioritizing what is deemed a triple bottom line, businesses focus on more than just the financial bottom line — they also equally prioritize societal and environmental issues. This can mean working toward lower negative environmental impacts, including operational efficiency and reducing waste. Businesses seek to find ways to keep people employed, ensure they are safely earning a living wage and engage the talents and skills of the employees by creating shared visions. They align like-minded suppliers, customers and colleagues, Orr says.
Orr referenced a quote by Robert Kennedy to describe AkzoNobel’s ideals: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask ‘why?’ I dream of things that never were, and ask ‘why not?’”
“The blue ocean approach creates a collaborative environment for developing solutions to shared issues and achieve the ‘why not’ aspirations for a new wave of thinking,” Orr said. “A number of businesses are adopting the triple bottom line and AkzoNobel is among that number. It became a means for us to “future proof” our business. We practice open innovation, and we no longer rely solely on internal resources to take ideas to market. We work with a continuum of like-minded professionals. We can’t do it ourselves. To be successful, we have to do it in collaboration with others.”
Life cycle thinking, which involves thinking both up and down stream, and evaluating environmental, societal and economic impacts, is strongly encouraged, said Manish Mehta, PH.D., director with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS). The center’s key initiatives are cross-industry collaboration, public/private partnerships, digital manufacturing, autonomous robotics and sustainable manufacturing.
“The environment, society and economy are highly integrated. Anything we do in one area has a reaction and trickles through the system. Whatever decisions are made are not made in isolation; they are made is synchronicity, and that is key to realize when employing triple bottom line sustainability.”
In the collision repair industry, specific sustainability trends include vehicle electrification and complexity, increased presence of mixed material vehicles — aluminum, carbon fiber composites, ultra high strength steel and nanotechnology in paint, sensors and heath monitoring — more connected and autonomous vehicles and automation and competition for skilled labor, among others.
“Success requires sustainability tools, game-changing technologies, workforce competencies and strategy. The payoffs are safe, clean and efficient systems,” Mehta says.
Tools for sustainability
The collision repair industry will continue to thrive, but which businesses maintain success is up for debate if the focus does not extend beyond financial gains.
“The concept of the automobile is not going away. How the automobile is made and repaired and where it is repaired becomes one of the opportunities,” Orr said, referencing the collision repair industry currently having approximately 38,000-40,000 shops today, with an estimate of fewer than 25,000 in 15 years.
But in a given day with real-time business challenges, who has the time to think about sustainability?
“The journey begins with where you are today,” says Barry Rinehart, commercial services leader with AkzoNobel.
One way to take those first steps toward improved sustainability is through AkzoNobel’s Sustainability Assessment Tool, which aims to help collision shops that want to measure themselves in the areas of sustainable practices and receive guidance for how to improve going forward.
The tool is an online assessment of a business’s economic, environmental and societal values. Questions assess the rate of which the business practices continuous improvement (lean), is environmentally conscious and is a good corporate citizen. An audit of the shop is done to confirm the assessment answers.
Areas of weakness are highlighted, with changes suggested. AkzoNobel can provide training and tools to improve shop performance and sustainability, and the program allows engagement with the shop during the process and monitoring of change and improvement.
AkzoNobel has partnered with Economical Insurance Company in Waterton, Ontario, to do a pilot rollout of the program to their shops. It is expected to be available in the US by the end of the year, Rinehart said.
“We all share a social responsibility and have a common interest when it comes to people, planet and profits,” said Rocco Neglia, vice president of claims for Economical.
Economical is working with AkzoNobel to help identify collision shops in its DRP program — which include both AkzoNobel and non-AkzoNobel supplied shops — that share the same values of focusing on the triple bottom line.
The tool has returned an improvement in touch time, reduction in cycle time, reduction in supplements, less re-work and improved CSI for participating Economical shops, Neglia says.
There is a link between the shops that are sustainable and also superior, Orr says. And shops that perform better get more referrals from Economical.
“It is our duty to provide information to our policy holders about who performs better,” Neglia said. So while those who do not participate are not directly penalized, those who do participate, and are successful, and given more referrals.
At the end of the day, it is all about driving sustainability for a better future for the planet, people and the economy.
“It is our goal to drive this alignment between two like-minded organizations that both have the desire to be sustainable, future proof, profitable. It is our goal to replicate this pattern in collision repair. It is a brave new world out there, but we are asking ‘why not?’” Orr says. “Step one is that we have to embrace the paradigm shift. Collision repair is no longer the pitstop between the misery of an accident and normal life. We are a contributor to a sustainable existence that can lower environmental impacts and create job opportunities. This is about seeing what could happen and then making it happen.”
