The wait will be worth it.

Due to Covid’s cancellation of last year’s in-person event, the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) is returning for the first time since 2019 with an ever-intriguing lineup for its two-hour IDEAS Collide Showcase on Friday, Nov. 5.

From 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Room S233 in the Upper South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Showcase will feature 10 fast-paced, 10-minute, out-of-the-box presentations designed to push the audience to look to upcoming innovations that could totally change the collision repair game.

“We’ve always championed that the topics in this session should rattle the status quo,” said SCRS Chairman Bruce Halcro. “I think the lineup of contributors this year is poised to do just that, and I personally find this to be one of the most ambitious sessions that breaks out of what we traditionally expect from industry education.”

The super-popular IDEAS Collide Showcase consists of a format similar to the TED Talks and puts its unique stamp on the previous four days of the Repairer Driven Education (RDE) series (Monday-Wednesday) and OEM Collision Repair Technology Summit (Thursday) during SEMA.

Explore and register for the IDEAS Collide Showcase and other SCRS Repairer Driven Education offerings at the SEMA Show by visiting www.scrs.com/2021RDE.

This year’s IDEAS Collide Showcase loaded lineup will consist of Brad Mewes, CFO of The Mewes Group CFOs; Diagnosis Specialist Jake Rodenroth; Sandy Blalock, Executive Director of the Automotive Recyclers Association; Data Base Enhancement Gateway Administrator Danny Gredinberg; Todd Korpi, the Global Key Accounts Director for 3M; NuGen IT founder Pete Tagliapietra; CCi Global Technologies Vice President Brandon Laur; Ben Kaminsky, General Manager of SEMA Garage Detroit; Michael LoPrete, Vice President of Global Operations for Plastix Industries and CollisionAdvice.com President Mike Anderson.

Tagliapietra will be the first IDEAS Collide Showcase presenter to address event attendees twice.

“As I see the whole forum on IDEAS Collide, it’s an opportunity to hear from multiple entities new ideas that can positively affect the collision repair industry,” Tagliapietra said. “Generally speaking, I think the presenters offer new information that is good for the industry and not necessarily good for the company.”

This year, Tagliapietra will address how Artificial Intelligence can help to greatly streamline the estimation process.

“Even today with computer machine learning and artificial intelligence is there the possibility that by simply taking the images of the damaged vehicle … is there enough interpretation on those images to link to an OEM repair information database and bring back the OEM repair procedures before even writing the estimate?” Tagliapietra asked.

This proposes a scenario that might alleviate extensive research surrounding exact repair procedures and Advanced Drive Assistance Systems Information that is currently so time consuming to research today.

“It can happen,” Tagliapietra said. “It’s not happening now, but it should happen. There’s no reason we can’t have that happen, and it’s an idea that I want to present.”

The showcase will feature:

Trump’s Tax Strategies for Body Shops

Brad Mewes | CFO, The Mewes Group CFOs

Ever wonder how Donald Trump, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos pay little to no tax? Want to discover the strategies they use to permanently eliminate their income tax? Brad Mewes, founder and Chief Financial Officer at The Mewes Group CFOs, will discuss strategies that will reduce your tax bill by at least $30,000 every single year and the one legal entity structure that is secretly stealing tens of thousands – and maybe even hundreds of thousands – of dollars from you (and you don’t even know it). If your accountant has ever told you that paying tax is a good problem to have, then this session is for you.

Telematics: The collision repair gamechanger

Jake Rodenroth | Diagnostic Specialist

Telematics is rapidly making a presence in the collision repair space.  First notice of loss, customer visibility and access to the vehicle being repaired change the collision business model significantly.  What are these systems capable of and how does your shop learn to work with them?

Inaccurate total loss valuations create a lose-lose for everyone

Sandy Blalock| Executive Director, Automotive Recyclers Association

Inaccurate vehicle valuations lead to increased total losses and everyone – including consumers, professional automotive and collision repairers, and professional automotive recyclers – are negatively impacted.  What’s worse is that these economic total losses often don’t end the vehicle lifecycle with the total loss settlement. They are far too often rebuilt outside of a professional environment and find their way back onto America’s roadways. Let’s delve into the conditions that exist today that lead to unnecessary total losses and explore potential solutions that would advantage consumers and professional businesses through better governmental models and industry practices.

Don’t contaminate your repair plan with outside influence

Danny Gredinberg | Administrator, Database Enhancement Gateway (DEG)

We will discuss the importance of utilizing a single estimating system when negotiating repair plans with bill payers who may use a different information provider. Thinking through the process of establishing which estimating system will be utilized in the repair planning and negotiation and establishing which P Pages will be used in negotiating repair plans. The choice may impact the language used within the p pages of included and not included operations, and understanding the differences in all three estimating systems

OEM Recommended Materials for Aftermarket Body Repair

Todd Korpi | Global Key Accounts Director, 3M

As new technology continues to be adopted into the vehicles, the repair industry continues to be challenged with ensuring proper and safe repairs. Companies like 3M work hand-in-hand with all the OEMs to ensure recommended materials are available to the repair industry and engaging directly with the OEM’s to ensure these materials are OEM recommended, endorsed, and called out in the OEM repair procedures. Direct access to OEM repair procedures is the best source of information to repair vehicles, as only the OEM fully understands how the vehicle is designed and how to properly repair vehicles back to pre-accident condition. This session will detail what you need to understand about OEM recommended, called-out, endorsed, and specified material solutions in the repair industry.

What if AI were used to increase repair plan thoroughness, rather than mitigate estimate lines

Pete Tagliapietra | Founder, NuGen IT, an OEC Company

 With the technology advancements realized with computer vision and machine learning, the possibility exists to proactively deliver all the necessary OEM repair procedures for the actual damages to a vehicle before a repair estimate is created. Most AI solutions have been presented to support the bill payer, rather than the repair professional. This session will explore an alternate reality where the approach will support the utilization of OEM procedures to build more comprehensive repair plans at the start of the process, rather than as an afterthought.

Data Security & The Digital Transformation of the Auto Claims Economy

Brandon Laur | Vice President, CCi Global Technologies (formerly known as ClaimsCorp)

With the digitization of the auto claims economy, what is the impact and opportunity of being “connected”? Who do you trust, and more importantly how do you trust them? This session will consider best practices collision repairers need to consider, and what to expect over the next 3-5 years for your business to transform by leveraging tools that safely manage and protect your data.

Modifying Vehicles in an ADAS World

Ben Kaminsky | General Manager, SEMA Garage Detroit

In 2021, SEMA purchased a 45,000-sq.-ft. building in the Detroit area to be used as a second SEMA Garage, a newly established ADAS Research and Development Center, where manufacturers will have access to new SEMA benefits. The 5000+ square feet dedicated to ADAS research and development, will feature expert technicians and state of the art scanning and calibration tools to aid in SEMA plans to educate and continue to enable modifications for vehicles with ADAS technologies. Ben Kaminsky, has gained a great deal of visibility into the tool selection process, and knowledge acquisition in equipping a ground-up facility focused on ADAS repair.  He will share the lessons learned and perceptions gained from the process.

Plastic Waste in Collision Repair – The problems, the solutions and sustainability

Michael LoPrete | Vice President of Global Operations, Plastfix Industries

Participants will gain an appreciation for global plastics waste, plastics waste in the collision repair industry, and solutions to address the scale.  We will explore stakeholders and the roles they play in this emerging problem for the industry as plastics use in manufacturing continues to increase.  This forum is designed to bring significant problems to light and this session will set the stage for efforts to address this important matter.

Making Safety Inspections a Non-negotiable Item

Mike Anderson | President, CollisionAdvice.com

Most, if not all, OEMs have safety inspections that need to be performed when a vehicle is in a collision – whether the airbags deploy or not.  In this event, Mike Anderson of Collision Advice discusses these safety inspections, what is involved and what components need to be inspected.  He’ll also discuss how to educate consumers and insurers about these inspections in a way that educates, not alienates.  This session will be Mike’s impassioned plea to the claims and repair industries to place consumer-safety at the forefront, by performing critical steps to ensure safety.

To register for the IDEAS Collide Showcase, click here.

This year, SCRS has also announced that it will film all the sessions, including the IDEAS Collide Showcase, so those who could not attend can keep up with the valuable information dished out. Full Series Pass holders will have the option of a Digital Add-On so they can share the sessions back at their  shops with colleagues.

The filmed sessions will be produced and rolled out in the weeks following the SEMA Show.

After the event, SCRS will offer online registration to attend the recorded sessions virtually. More details on that will be forthcoming.

The RDE Full Session Pass is just $375 for early birds (that increases to $400 onsite).

RDE regular session, OEM Collision Repair Technology Summit sessions and the SCRS IDEAS Collide Showcase tickets are $75 each ($85 onsite) and tickets to the SCRS RDE After-party are $85 ($100 onsite).

Images:

NuGen IT business development leader Pete Tagliapietra on Nov. 2 at SEMA proposed the collision industry establish a nonprofit big data repository free to all contributing body shops. (John Huetter/Repairer Driven News)