With today's cars being designed to absorb the impact rather than deflect it, straightening of parts is often times not an option. What many shop owners have discovered is that it is more profitable to simply replace the part than it is to spend valuable clock hours straightening and filling. In this futuristic design, much of the metal repair process is being sequenced in an assembly line process. The major straightening will continue to be done off-line, where the vehicle can be tied down and straightened. After the major structural work has been completed, the vehicle would then be processed in an assembly line fashion where all additional disassembly, replacement of parts, prepping, and painting will be done in a continuous process by teams of technicians that are trained and specialized in a particular segment of the repair process.
Specialization allows for improved technician efficiencies and significant reductions in labor cost.
The basic concept behind the assembly line process is that vehicles will be moved from repair station to repair station at regular time intervals. Different lines of production are based on varying ranges of labor hours estimated to complete the repair and each production line moves at a different time interval to accommodate varying degrees of damage . This concept is illustrated in figure 5. Well defined systems and procedures would be in place to eliminate the problems typically associated with passing of a job from one technician to the next. Each repair station would consist of a series of well defined tasks and employees trained to do these specific tasks independent of the vehicle being worked on.