Simply make more money

Simply make more money

The abbreviation WAIL stands for “economical work in paint shops”. The regular seminars at the Festool headquarters in Grödig (Salzburg) deal with this topic precisely. As we all know, the cost pressure in paint shops is particularly high: insurance companies keep repair costs to a minimum, and private customers can hardly afford standard hourly rates. 

Practical

The problem with poor training: Often the speaker is not a practical person, but rather a talented number juggler. The result is that the lecture is theoretically flawless, but can hardly be implemented in everyday life. Festool has therefore turned the tables and has experts with relevant practical experience “teaching”. This not only has the advantage of dealing with colleagues in the industry, but also of dealing with typical everyday problems. An example: On average, 59 percent of the labor costs charged are divided into the hourly rate, 30 percent go to spare parts and only eleven percent are painting materials. So if you want to make savings, you should do so in the largest part - labor costs. In this case, saving time means saving money. Because an efficient employee who doesn't always have to walk across the workshop to look for his tools can do more work in the same time than an inefficient one - logically. A few examples from practice: During the seminar, the participants were asked about their grinding work steps. On average it takes six to seven steps until the car is in the paint booth. At Festool, where they work with a special system, the work steps are reduced to just four - with the same result. This saves time and abrasives.

Comparison calculation

Another example: Is premium sandpaper worth it? The speaker Stefan Langenberg gave a simple but effective demonstration - without any subjective manipulation: A Festool premium sandpaper had to prove itself against the cheaper paper under the same conditions. The result was astonishing: While the premium abrasive cleaned up the two millimeter thick filler stain in just three minutes and 26 seconds - and was then still usable - the cheaper model had to work for a full six minutes and should actually have been replaced after just four minutes. On average, you can save around 30 percent in time without any real additional costs, as the premium paper costs a bit more but also lasts longer. 

Tips and tricks

We asked a seminar participant: "I've already taken part in a lot of training courses, but the WAIL seminar was well done. I was able to take a lot with me for my company. For example, we had an expensive machine that we only used for polishing. Now I know that we can also use it for grinding," said Joachim Eglseder. In addition to tips and tricks for making better use of working time, classic cost factors that you might not think of at first are also considered. Or would you have thought that compressed air for using grinding and polishing machines is blatantly more expensive than electricity? And savings of several thousand euros per year are already possible here. If you want to make your painting business more economically viable, you should seriously consider a WAIL seminar for yourself and your employees. It might be worth it.