AkzoNobel today announced Refinish+, a new digital platform developed for body shops to help streamline operations, improve efficiency, and increase profitability.
Refinish+ provides body shops with seamless access, and one single sign on, to AkzoNobel’s full suite of digital tools including AkzoNobel’s cloud-based color retrieval application MIXIT, its state-of- the-art body shop production workflow application Carbeat, E-learning to drive the digital learning journey, and access to key product information.
AkzoNobel will be introducing Refinish+ in phases to customers in North America, Australia and selected markets in Europe in the first half of 2024.
Additional applications will be added to Refinish+ in the future. The platform also includes the option to integrate third-party software.
Refinish+ supports independent collision repair centers and multi-site operators in driving business performance through digital transformation. It is designed to help make body shops more effective so that they can create better workplaces for their employees and deliver the best service to their customers.
Refinish+ is a customizable platform with a personalized user interface and home screen to enable customers to select the most important KPIs to track for their business.
A key feature is the Refinish+ Insights dashboard, which gives a holistic view of performance and processes using comprehensive analytics across all operations to provide real-time insights on multiple metrics. These insights will empower data-driven decision-making to help optimize workflows, and to improve business performance.
Body shops will also be able to compare their performance against industry-leading performance benchmarks with the Refinish+ Manager. This will allow them to pinpoint areas of improvement and address challenges such as paint and material profitability and cycle times, as well as energy and emissions.
“Skills shortage, spiraling costs and high repair complexity are the biggest challenges for body shops today,” explains Patrick Bourguignon, Director of AkzoNobel’s Automotive & Specialty Coatings. “Refinish+ has been developed to help our customers to work smarter and drive efficiency with our full range of AkzoNobel Vehicle Refinish digital solutions in one place. Plus, the platform’s tools – Refinish+ Insights and Refinish+ Manager – help to improve our customers’ business performance.”