Excellence Awards 2021

MTA WA Automotive Excellence Awards 2021

On Saturday, 1 May 2021, Capricorn CEO Automotive Bradley Gannon spoke to the socially distant and COVIDsafe MTA WA Automotive Excellence Awards 2021, with distinguished guests MLA WA Premier Hon. Mark McGowan, MTA WA President Ray Mountney, and MTA WA Group CEO Stephen Moir in attendance.

Capricorn would like to send a big congratulations to all the finalists and winners of the Motor Trade Association of Western Australia Automotive Excellence Awards. The passion and commitment all attendees have for the industry, their customers, and their staff were evident to see.

Brad noted it was also fantastic to see the resilience and ‘can-do’ attitude of the industry. Whilst all of our membership has faced the challenges of COVID in our lives, it was inspiring to see how everyone has navigated their way through and is now operating in far more positive conditions.

Capricorn is proud to work with the MTA WA and other similar organisations to promote a stronger automotive industry for all of our Members and Preferred Suppliers.

We look forward to celebrating the passion, resilience, and determination of all our Members as we learn to manage and adapt to COVID across Australia and New Zealand.

becomes busy Rust Worx

north of the river and opened Rust Worx four years ago. Within six months he had hired his first employee.

Business has been booming. He moved to bigger premises in Bibra Lake in February 2020 and now has five employees “and more on the way”.

As the name implies, Rust Worx handles anything to do with rust — from the smallest jobs, right up to full restorations. Gary and his team clean and assess the rusty area, fabricate or purchase the replacement section required, weld it into place, treat the whole area for rust, then prime and weld.

Gary joined Capricorn in September 2017, after a Capricorn Area Manager visiting the mechanical workshop next door called in for a chat. “I knew about Capricorn through working for panel shops,” Gary said.

“It just makes things so much easier at the end of the month in terms of accounting, and you’ve got a credit limit there, which allows you to get all your materials for the month and away you go. “You’d be silly not to be in it.”

Gary also uses the Fuel Card and Capricorn Risk Services, and enjoys using his Reward Points. “Capricorn is great to deal with and if you have any questions or queries, they’re always there for you,” he said.

Getting a workshop so he could tinker with his own projects after work hours turned out to be a great decision for New Zealand-born West Australian smash repairer Gary Hughes.

“I had a guy come in who wanted new floor pans for a Ford Mustang,” Gary explained. “I thought ‘you beauty, that’ll pay the rent on the workshop for a while’, so I did it. “Then it just kind of spiralled. One came in, then another came in, then another.”

With the work flowing, Gary quit his job at a panel and paint shop

Capricorn Preferred Suppliers are an integral part of our cooperative model. We recognise the achievements of our high performing Capricorn Preferred Suppliers through our Million Dollar Preferred Supplier Awards. These awards are presented to Preferred Suppliers who reach million dollar milestones in total Capricorn Member sales. It is great to see Capricorn Preferred Suppliers reaching these outstanding milestones. Congratulations to the following Preferred Suppliers.

JJ Auto Parts

JJ Auto Parts has been an industry-leading Capricorn Preferred Supplier for more than 14 years and has been providing Capricorn Members with the best-quality recycled parts, hassle-free quotes and various freight options, dependent upon Members’ needs. It’s for these reasons they have achieved this milestone award. Well done to Matthew and his team!

ULR Auto Group

ULR Land Rover pride themselves on being easy to do business with, delivering Capricorn Members a personalised service from the moment they contact their team. Congratulations on their $1 Million Dollar Supplier Award for 2020!

HOW THE AAAA CAR PARC TOOL CAN HELP YOU PLAN BUYING PARTS

Do you know what spare parts you need to keep in stock to service your customers as efficiently as possible?

What about the parts you’ll need to keep in stock to service them next year? Or the year after that? Or in four years’ time?

That’s exactly the kind of planning smart workshop owners are doing regularly — and there’s a very simple tool that’s helping them do it — the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association’s Car Parc.

By using Car Parc, business owners know money and valuable space aren’t being spent on stocking parts they’re unlikely to need. They can work out the spare parts they’re most likely to need today, tomorrow, and well into the future.

One Capricorn Member who does just that is Daryn Brims. He owns six automotive businesses between Brisbane and Bundaberg in Queensland.

“I use Car Parc to know what vehicles are in the area, what kilometres they’re at, and what is likely to fail in particular,” Daryn said. “Then I can make sure our businesses have got all the stock needed to support those vehicles and, even more so, make sure we’ve got all the go-to scan tools.

“I don’t want a customer to turn up and have to say ‘sorry, sir, I can’t help you’.

“I also use it to analyse what’s coming and try to stock our warehouses and our stores with the right parts, in the right spot.”

The first screen tells Daryn how many vehicles there are in his local government area. It provides two snapshots — one from 2014 and one from 2019.

Crucially, it also tells him how old the vehicles are and, therefore, the pool of vehicles that will be out of the manufacturer’s service warranty and whose owners are more likely to consider using an independent workshop. The number of vehicles less than five years old gives Daryn an indication of the mix of vehicles comes down the pipeline.

The second screen shows Daryn a breakdown of the makes and allows him to work out the trend.

Daryn can then compare the data for Maryborough to the data from any of his other local areas. That analysis might suggest stocking plenty of Volkswagen parts in his Maroochydore workshop, but fewer in Maryborough.

Car Parc then presents users with a breakdown of the most popular models, across all makes, in the local area. From this Daryn can drill down and see that, of those vehicles that are older than five years, there are actually more Holden Commodores than LandCruisers.