NMS Auto Body named third best in world

Polokwane based NMS Auto Body showed their mettle by winning a coveted international award recently.
The panel beater won third place in the worldwide Volvo International Service Training Award (Vista) World Championship that was held at the Volvo Training Centre in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Vista is an international competition open to all aftermarket professionals within the Volvo Cars global service network. It is the world’s largest competition for aftermarket personnel, with this year’s competition involving over 13 000 participants from 93 countries.
The aim of the competition is to help employees develop and improve their knowledge, skills, and ability to work as a team. Participants take part in teams of two to four people and the competition starts with three rounds of theoretical questions, which teams complete in their workshops. After three rounds, the best performing teams qualify for the regional semi-finals and from these semi-finals 50 teams are chosen for the final championship.
Vista is much more than a competition, it is a mass training event where participants improve their skills.
NMS Auto Body Speedshop boasts 6 000 m2 of which 4 000 m2 is covered and home to a modern and innovative workshop.
The workshop team leaders are highly competent and have years of experience in the panel beating industry and the workforce of 38 employees includes six qualified panel beaters and three qualified spray painters, while the rest of the workforce range from administration to workshop assistants.
All personnel enjoy on-going in-house technical training and NMS Auto Body have successfully recruited and trained a number of people who are successfully managing their own businesses today.
As part of their latest community involvement initiative the company recruited people who are deaf and hard of hearing as apprentices in order to offer these trainees opportunities to learn new skills and to become economically independent.
Located at 66 Fosfaat Street, Laboria, NMS Auto Body has certainly come a far way since current owner Gerrit Pieterse and a partner started the business in 1986.
Pieterse became sole owner and NMS Auto Body was established in 1989.
The business has grown substantially over the past few years and obtained membership of the Retail Motor Industry (RMI) and South African Motor Builders Association (Sambra). NMS Auto Body also achieved Major Repairer Grading (MRG).
Pieterse attributes the company’s success to well developed processes. “Our production facility in Polokwane consists of two teams more than required to ensure superior quality and customer satisfaction. Recently we saw a huge gap in the market for minor repairs and touch ups, catering entirely to customers that cannot allow for any downtime on their vehicles. Thus the Speedshop concept was born,” he explains.
The Speedshop specialises in services such as minor cosmetic repairs, paintless dent removals and hail damage as well as bumper repairs, parts replacement, dent removal and paint touch-ups.
The turnaround time is usually no more than 24 hours.

MARKI FRANKEN
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