Sep 19 2008
BASF Coatings has opened a new training center in Shanghai to meet the burgeoning demand for automotive spray painting professionals and body shop staff.
The training center will further strengthen BASF Coatings’ competencies in providing enhanced refinish coatings solutions – high quality products bundled with the best application techniques and training.
“These days, repairing damage to a car's finish is a highly complex process. It takes constant training at all levels to achieve perfect results in just the wink of an eye, with spray gun in hand. The opening of this international standard training center will allow us to further support the professional development of spray painters and body shop staff in China, and has demonstrated our commitment to supporting after-sales networks in China,” said Hans-Juergen Becker, the head of BASF Coatings International Trade (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.
The new Refinish Competence Center in Shanghai provides training for spray painters from authorized service centers and body shops working with leading distributors. Successful participants learn the best techniques for painting and repairing car brands such as Mercedes Benz, Audi, Volkswagen, and Peugeot Citroen, as well as other leading brands. Courses last for four days each and range from beginning spray gun use to advanced color matching. Faculty of the center include a permanent trainer as well as a BASF Coatings national trainer.
Attendees of the inaugural courses at the Center, which is equipped with the latest spray guns and ovens, have provided positive feedback, including this comment from a SVW 4S shop painter: "I am very satisfied with this training; it greatly improved my knowledge of color matching." The Center can train up to 600 specialists per year.
Following the opening of training centers in Beijing, Shenyang and Guangzhou, it is BASF Coatings' fourth Refinish Competence Center in China. BASF Coatings now has over 47 Refinish Competence Centers worldwide, reflecting the rapidly growing automotive industry, both in China and the rest of the world. Statistics from the Shanghai Bureau of Transportation shows that the number of auto repair chain stores in the city established through MLS, partnership, authorized partnership, joint ventures and other forms had reached 350 by mid-2007, and is growing rapidly . There are also hundreds of independent body shops, serving a booming population of cars in the city. In Shanghai alone, the number of individual passenger cars had already reached 410,000 by the end of 2006 and the number of civil passenger cars reached 620,000. The newly established Center will serve this automotive sector and the surrounding region as well.