The Spring 2017 General Meeting for the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) on Monday, April 24 in New Orleans hosted discussions on a wide range of industry issues, involving 11 presenters and several questions from the OEM and independent audience.
- Education – NASTF Chair Mark Saxonberg, principal of SCS, moderated a panel discussion on technician education with a focus on leveraging existing programs to solve the shortage of qualified techs. The one-hour session, “The Road to GREAT Technicians: Let’s Get Started,” examined why the aftermarket should want to better use ASE’s AYES program with comments from panelists: Trish Serratore, president of NATEF; Rick Lester, manager of Toyota’s T-TEN program, and Chris Chesney, senior director – customer training at CARQUEST. Jill Saunders of Toyota and Rob Morrell of WORLDPAC added insight on the NASTF Education Committee’s initiative, revealing their wish to ensure the industry will succeed in 1) promotion of current industry programs, 2) development of apprentice/intern standards, 3) establishment of career credential tracking and 4) ensuring ongoing continuing education.
- Collision – Tim Morgan, managing director of Spanesi Americas, alerted the industry to a list of technologies now challenging the collision repairer, including the use of scan tools, the need for OEM repair techniques, changing vehicle structure content, changing repair techniques and the struggle to simply find repair procedures.
- VSP Registry – Claude Hensley, owner of Lockman Florida, presented the semi-annual report on the status of NASTF’s Vehicle Security Professional Registry, revealing a 31 percent annual increase in the number of registry subscribers, now numbering more than 5,000 with 55 percent in the locksmith segment and 45 percent in the auto repair segment.
- SAE J2534 – Kurt Immekus, service publication specialist for Audi/VW and Bernie Carr of Bosch discussed the status of the many SAE J2534 projects and presented a range of industry benefits from the pending adoption by industry of the 05.00 version.
- Heavy-Duty – NASTF Executive Director Skip Potter reported on the recent addition of commercial vehicle OEMs to NASTF’s Service Information Request program. He noted that medium-duty OEMs are mostly compliant now with the HD MOU but not all Class 8 truck OEMs have settled their understanding with the aftermarket of the MOU requirements or provided enough resources to launch their solution. Potter encouraged heavy-duty technicians to file specific NASTF SIRs, which will help heavy-duty OEMs understand what technicians need and how they need it.
A full recording of the three-hour Spring 2017 General Meeting and cuts of several selected presentations will be posted to NASTF’s YouTube channel by May 20. Availability of those videos will be announced on the association’s website, nastf.org.
