Axalta relies on digitalization

Axalta relies on digitalization

The smarter the car, the less sales for car painters. Manufacturers want to reduce the number of accidents, especially thanks to more and more assistance systems. Ergo: Less work for the paint shops. Axalta is already thinking about the future of its paint shops. Because one thing is certain, as Peter Kalina, Country Business Manager Axalta, explains: “As long as there are cars, whether they drive themselves or are driven by people, color will be a crucial selling point, there will be car paints.” To be more precise: multi-layered or structured paint structures, exclusive effects and more than 1,200 new colors every year. Designers at automobile manufacturers are facing increasing challenges. In order to remain competitive as a painting company, companies have to rethink and adapt today rather than tomorrow. "Most domestic paint shops are craft-oriented. But we are already in the middle of a digital revolution, which no matter how good painters should resist," Kalina continues and puts it bluntly: "Customers are even demanding more digitalization. Anyone who doesn't switch over now will be left behind."

DIGITALLY AWESOME?

But what does digitalization actually mean? It starts with a modern IT infrastructure with company-wide WLAN that is tailored to the entire company. If you want to speed up your work processes, you can use the electronic color measuring device, which connects wirelessly to the computer in the color mixing room. The measurement is processed and compared with the digital, cloud-based and always up-to-date color collection worldwide. The color that best suits the measurement is defined and can be mixed either manually or fully automatically (e.g. with a daisy wheel). Practical side effect: every measurement is saved. Everything sounds great, but what about the costs? "The acquisition costs are sometimes used as an excuse. Overall, it costs more to repaint a car than to purchase solid, future-proof basic IT equipment," says Kalina. In the near future, Axalta will hand over the hardware business to a professional partner who will offer a tailor-made full-service package with IT infrastructure and IT services for paint shops. Harald Dögl, Product Manager Axalta, explains the background: "We estimated that we had to provide over 3,000 hours of IT support per year. However, our core competencies are our products and their application as well as the painting process as a whole. This ideally begins with the acceptance of the repair. We will concentrate on this again in the future and support our customers in carrying out the repair process efficiently, economically and with high quality."