There is often a lack of understanding”

There is often a lack of understanding”

“I think Austrians often think that they can do everything and don’t need anyone.” With these words, Erik Paul Papinski tries to find an explanation for why not many more specialist companies support the IFL project. The IG for Vehicle Technology and Painting (IFL) was founded in 2007 as an interest group for the body and painting industry. The aim is to identify errors and deficiencies in working hours in the common computer-supported calculation systems (Eurotax, Schwacke, DAT, Audatex) and to correct them in dialogue with the damage calculation providers and automobile manufacturers.

Papinski, who has just retired as the Federal Guild Master of Body Builders and handed over the scepter to Manfred Kubik, was also able to gain insight into the conditions in other countries as former President of the AIRC (World Association of Body and Vehicle Builders). And he admits that the feedback there, for example in Germany or Switzerland, is not more frequent. It would be important for companies to share their experiences.

Fictional numbers

"There is often a lack of understanding. It is not the case that the manufacturers, as some people believe, dismantle the cars and put them back together again. They work with fictitious numbers and simply extrapolate working times from previous models to new models," explains Papinski. "The computer does it all. But artificial intelligence is only as good as the people it feeds." In practice, the devil is in the details. It can happen that 1.5 hours are estimated for a work process that actually takes more than ten hours. “It’s not enough to share it with your friends, you have to report it and document it,” says Papinski, emphasizing that in times of digitalization the work required for this only takes a few minutes.