The Auto Glass Safety Council and National Windshield Repair Association announced last month the NWRA will dissolve and its work, standards and members would be folded into a new AGSC Windshield Repair Division.

The switch will occur Jan. 1, 2019, the AGSC wrote in a news release Oct. 29.

“A good third of our memberships overlapped already,” AGSC Vice President Jean Pero said in a statement. “We are delighted to have the entire auto glass industry under one umbrella. It will enhance the services we can provide as well as our clout.”

NWRA President Troy Mason said “repair-only” glass shops would still be relevant in the organization.

“We are thrilled to be able to bring the memberships of both organizations together,” Mason — also a member of the AGSC board — said in a statement. “We found that there was a significant overlap in services and a redundancy to some of the things both organizations were doing. Speaking as one stronger voice also helps all of us.”

The announcement is obviously relevant to collision repairers handling glass work in-house. Glass expert Bob Beranek, the owner of Automotive Glass Consultants and lead instructor for Auto Glass University, said in a 2017 interview that more collision repairers seem to be adding auto glass replacement capabilities.

Collision Hub CEO Kristen Felder observed in a November 2017 “Repair University Live” that the vehicles appearing before a collision repairer are more likely to need new windshields altogether. Nevertheless, the consolidation might make it slightly easier for a collision repairer to find a qualified glass subcontractor for either operation.

Glass is structural, just like a frame rail, and yet a shop will outsource it to someone they don’t know, Felder observed on the 2017 broadcast.

“Glass plays an impact role in collisions,” she said then. Mark Olson, CEO of Vehicle Collision Experts, said on the show that shop owners should oversee their glass subletter and be in the loop on what’s happening.

Felder said then that the glass company might not even be aware of OEM repair procedures and might need them from the shop, and Olson also referred collision repairers to the AGSC’s replacement standard, which he said many insurers require to be followed anyway.

In terms of glass repair standards besides the OEM’s, the AGSC said Oct. 29 it will retain the NWRA’s Repair of Laminated Automotive Glass Standard. The NWRA called this the “windshield repair industry’s statement of best practices as compiled under ANSI guidelines by a ‘balanced’ committee.”

The consolidated organization will also keep the Break Identification Standard, which the NWRA wrote “creates a system for identifying where glass damage has been repaired and covers all types of glass in the car, exclusive of sunroofs.”

More information:

“AGSC and NWRA to Consolidate”

Auto Glass Safety Council, Oct. 29, 2018

AGSC website

National Windshield Repair Association website

Featured image: The Auto Glass Safety Council will absorb the National Windshield Repair Association starting Jan. 1, 2019. (Provided by AGSC, NWRA)