East Coast Car Parts Talk to Auto Trade Ireland About Their Successful PPG LINQ™ Adoption
East Coast Car Parts: First Irish Motor Factor to add PPG LINQ™
East Coast Car Parts, the Tallaght based Motor Factors carved out its own piece of history recently when it became the first Motor Factors in Ireland to install PPG LINQ™, the next generation Colour Identification System for bodyshops.
East Coast Car Parts represents the NEXA AUTOCOLOR®, AQUABASE® PLUS,TURBO VISION®, SELEMIX® and MAXMEYER® paint brands from the PPG stable and is recognised as one of the leading paint distributors in the greater Dublin area.
With a strong tradition servicing the collision repair sector, the company also represents the CarSystem range of abrasives, a wide range of of body panels, from leading suppliers as well as the Devilbiss range of sprayguns.
East Coast Car Parts, also imports, distributes and stocks the Denckermann range of high-quality car parts including filters, cooling parts, brakes, steering and suspension parts, bearings and wheel hubs, shock absorbers, pulleys, and transmission parts.
The company offers a same day delivery service in the greater Dublin area, and twice daily delivery for bodyshops and workshops in the locality.
Alan Kelly, Technical Sales Paint Manager, heads a team of three in the Bodyshop department and reports that business is brisk on the back of offering quality products, backed up by high levels of customer service and competitive pricing.
The arrival of PPG LINQ will further strengthen the company's position, according to Alan Kelly.
“PPG LINQ resolves the issues surrounding colour matching and has been a great success, since its recent introduction,” Alan continued.
“It has been very well received by our existing customers, and we've had a number of new customers coming on board, because they heard we are using PPG LINQ.”
He added: “The launch of the PPG LINQ system is the first colour-match identification tool that can create a “Virtual Colour Chip” accurately that truly matches the real paint in high definition. The Virtual Colour variant can then be compared to an onscreen picture of the colour on the car you need to repair,” Alan added.
Key components of the PPG LINQ system are the PPG VISUALIZID™ advanced, unique 3D visualisation software and the PPG DIGIMATCH™ digital colour camera.
“These tools are used together to digitise the colour-matching process, significantly improving speed and efficiency, and reducing product wastage for more sustainable bodyshop operations,” Alan revealed.
The PPG DigiMatch multi-angle digital colour camera is an ergonomic, lightweight device that can be operated with one hand. It features six imaging angles and six reflectance angles to capture vehicle colour and texture information quickly and accurately.
But crucially, it also contains a powerful camera that allows it to take an image of the car colour to be repaired. It can then recreate this photo image on screen to give the painter an accurate impression of his target colour.
Then the magic starts. The PPG VisualizID software, which has been painstakingly matched up to all of the tinter ranges in the PPG WB Basecoat systems and has been used to read the actual colours achieved through every one of PPG's 70,000 variants, will compare the target colour, with the best recorded matches, and will then recreate on screen an image of the colour that each selected variant will give.
The system will pick several options that it sees as a close match. The painter can then pull up an image of each variant and compare it to the target colour. He can view the virtual colour chips from all angles, in all different types of light.
He can zoom in to see if the flake effect matches too. He can even look at it under spotlights and sunlight, with and without clearcoat. This allows the painter to make a very accurate assessment of the colour, before he has even mixed it.
“We can accurately show painters what their chosen colour will look like compared to the car. The painter can then make his choice of how to proceed. And unlike the old colour boxes, this virtual tool can provide images of all 70,000 matches we have, and when we add a new match, the system automatically updates itself. So the day after we complete a match to a new colour, the tool will be able to show this colour. This is truly the future of colour matching today,” Alan noted.
"PPG LINQ™ resolves the issues surrounding colour matching and has been a great success, since its recent introduction"
“Many modern bodyshops are turning to digital solutions to meet their productivity, efficiency and sustainability goals,” Alan elaborated.
“Customer insight and feedback played a big part in the development of this system, so our customers can be confident that the PPG LINQ system will allow them to meet these goals by increasing the speed and efficiency of their operations.”
The launch of the PPG LINQ platform, PPG VisualizID software and the PPG DigiMatch camera follows the release of the PPG’s award-winning automated paint mixing system MOONWALK® in 2019.
Additional components of the PPG LINQ digital ecosystem will be introduced throughout 2023.