COLUMBIA, S.C. – Gus Mallios extends an invitation to his industry colleagues to tour his new corporate office and “super shop,” a state-of-the-art facility costing more than $2 million. It features a robotic framing machine, an assembly line-based repair process, unique staffing procedures and exquisite décor complete with a cascading fountain out front.
“We’re doing a lot of things here in little Columbia, South Carolina,” says Mallios, president and owner of Summit Collision Centers. “This is a new concept in body shops. We designed this as a new process,” he says, citing a radical departure from standard repair strategies.
At 30,000 square feet, the Northeast Columbia location – the company’s fourth – is fully computerized, air-conditioned and video accessible to concerned or curious customers.
“We can e-mail people when their car is being painted, and if they want to watch they can,” Mallios explains, noting how most customers are content with the knowledge that repairs are going forward. “People just want to see their cars. They say, ‘There’s my baby,’ and then they click off.”
Interest in the Webcam access “has exploded,” already resulting in thousands of hits to www.summitcollisioncenters.com.
The facility has been up and operating for just a couple weeks; the gala grand opening attracted considerable local media coverage, with the event highlighted by not one – but three – live remote broadcasts from area radio stations. Summit paid to have the broadcasters on hand, but heavy on-air promotional spots brought a hefty response.
“They promoted us all week.” And then there are the billboards and print advertisements.
In a design process that took two years, Mallios toured large body shops all over the country, pondering the latest innovations and adding his own. “I think outside the box. This is the future; we’re light years ahead of anyone in this area. I designed it and built it, and it still amazes me every day.”
Construction took a year and Mallios took an active role in that as well. (The company also owns Summit Excavating along with Summit Motor Sports.)
A focal point of the Northeast location is its framing machine, which according to Mallios is the only one in the United States equipped with the optional robotic arm.
As a direct repair provider for several major insurance companies and automobile dealers, he reports “they love it because I’m cutting my cycle times in half; it’s a no-brainer. It’s getting people out of rental cars sooner.”
He observes that the 15 shop floor employees are enthusiastically embracing the concepts being introduced despite initial trepidation and assorted “bugs” that continue to be remedied.
“It’s hard to get someone who has done something for 20 years and then just flip it upside down,” Mallios muses. “Everyone’s been open-minded about it – they like it. We’re running an assembly-line process. Instead of the technician coming to the car, the car comes to the technician.”
However, the linear lines he viewed at other shops – where the vehicle moves from one end of the building to the other – were not in line with what Mallios had in mind. “‘Assembly line’ does not mean moving in one direction; it means the car is continually moving, and it can move from side-to-side or at an angle” to accomplish the various tasks. “Eventually all my shops will go to this technique.”
The tools are toted via carts. “Nothing can be on the floor. Everything is on wheels and movable throughout the shop. We have a Bondo cart, we have a seam sealer cart,” he says by way of example.
When a damaged vehicle comes in, its position in the line is determined by the severity of hits. The most mangled cars are in close proximity to the supply room so “all the parts are at their fingertips.”
At the paint booth, from priming to the clearcoat, “we only mask a car up one time.” Industry colleagues have predicted blemishes and other drawbacks with this technique, but Mallios says thus far “not one problem” has occurred with the finishes.
The workforce is organized differently than other shops, too, he says. “We’re taking apprentices and running them with our ‘A’ technicians.” Currently the Northeast location has two body crews; one to four apprentice technicians are paired with two ‘A’ technicians. (“We’re fixing to add a third crew.” Eventually there will be five or six.)
“We have teams, and the team leader is responsible for that car from start to finish. There is someone responsible for the (entire) car, so you don’t have quality issues,” he says. Under this system, apprentices closely supervised by the ‘A’ technician in-charge do much of the routine tasks. “We’ve been paying people $100,000 a year to take bumpers off of cars, and that’s ridiculous.”
Industry-wide and in Columbia, “we’re starving for good technicians. The profit margins are shrinking so bad and the worker pool is shrinking so bad, so we had do something.”
That something includes recruiting motivated young people and teaching them the Summit way of repairing vehicles. Mallios says the nation’s technical schools are excellent, but “they’re still doing things the same way they did 20 years ago, so I like to create my own.”
“We’re in an area with a lot of high-end cars, and there was nobody here to take care of the high-end community,” Mallios explains, expressing confidence that he will recoup his investment. “I’m after profits.”
