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No Scratch Goes Unpunished.
Class A painted surfaces
suffer from two preventable forms of
damage: scratches and dents.
Scratches
Scratches result
from contact with a tool, ring, watch or component that can be seen
and that must be repaired. The average industry cost to
repair a 1cm scratch is $175.
Scratches
are the most insidious damage and are generally not process related
but the result of an associate dragging an air line over a fender
or hitting a part with another. Because scratching is so difficult
to pin down, covering affected parts prevents it. It’s important
that the protection system used does not itself create damage by
sliding and moving once installed. For this reason, a good
protection system will not allow rigid plastic to contact a Class
A surface.
It is also important
that the protectors remain in the proper, designed position. Doing
this involves engineering attachment areas or ‘clips’ to reference
to body panels in a consistent and easily installed manner.
Dents
Dents are caused
by contact with tools, material handling systems and other parts.
Dents result in extensive, and expensive, rework and can include
replacement of sheet metal.
We’ve seen a steady
reduction in the thickness of sheet metal to lower weight to meet
CAFE standards. While this may be good for gas mileage, body panels
are now thin enough to deflect with a push of the thumb. Training
line associates to ‘be careful’ is wishful thinking at best. It
no longer takes a hit from the Terminator to crush a fender—anyone
can do it.
Dents can usually
be traced back to a process problem. In one memorable instance,
an associate repeatedly pressed a defective socket back on an air
tool by pressing the socket against the fender because the fender
was covered with a sewn vinyl protector so there would be no problem.
He never looked under the protector but management did—200 vehicles
later. There was little rejoicing when the cause was found
but we did receive an order for energy absorbing HardGuard products.
Even with our protectors, it’s difficult to prevent damage from
a swinging air tool so we now design systems that offer multiple
levels of protection.
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