British Kitemark PAS 125 Inspection time…
5 November 2014
British Kitemark ‘on the spot’ surprise inspection…
The main accreditation for bodyshops and garages within the accident repair industry is the infamous ‘PAS 125’ Kitemark. Just to fill you in, this is an industry accreditation governed by the British Standards Institute – it’s a long and difficult process to achieve the Kitemark. Not only that, once you have it, you are then subject to twice yearly inspections to make sure that you are doing everything you should to retain it! These inspections are not pre-arranged, representatives from BSI turn up without warning and then carry out extensive checks on our systems to make sure we are fully compliant. From our own perspective, it took almost two years to get to the point where we felt ready to be assessed. We saw it as vital to our business and an increasing number of customers, insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers and other work providers started to insist on bodyshops like James Alpe Ltd having the Kitemark before they would be given work.
So what does PAS 125 mean?
It basically covers all aspects of our repair process and is a recognised quality accreditation within our industry. We have to demonstrate that only appropriately trained staff work on specific jobs, that we use the latest tested repair methods, the equipment and processes we use to carry out the repair are all correct and the tools are correctly calibrated. To our customers it means that they can be sure of the quality of repair – that we are not going to repair vehicles which have been deemed ‘write offs’ or ‘total losses’ and that at every stage of repair we will carry out quality checks and document everything.
Our latest PAS 125 Inspection
This took place during early November and rather than the usual one day inspection, this was an intensive two day audit. We are absolutely delighted to say that we passed this with flying colours and therefore retain our Kitemark Accreditation until the next audit. It’s a great accolade to the quality of our work, the skills of our staff, our investment in equipment, infrastructure etc. and we continue to strive for excellence!
