Audatex UK has invested £2m in a business continuity programme designed to ensure that computer failure will not leave bodyshop customers in the lurch.

In an attempt to placate bodyshops, Audatex offered a one-day assessment credit as compensation for the loss of access to its AudaEnterprise estimating system, caused by a hardware failure in September, and by human error in October.

The credit relates to estimates carried out on Friday November 10, although some bodyshops were critical of the offer. “If they had offered me free estimates for a week, I’d have been more impressed,” says one.

Paul Tucker, Audatex managing director and CEO, has appointed an independent auditor to review the failures and intends to publish the findings.

Meanwhile, under the business continuity programme, Audatex’s Sun hardware has been replaced by Hewlett Packard servers and storage facilities, and the Audatex databases have been moved to the new infrastructure.

By Christmas they will be backed up by a parallel infrastructure, based off-site in Hounslow, London.

This should minimize the impact on repairers needing to process estimates and begin repair jobs should another failure occur, by allowing rapid switchover to the parallel system.

“I cannot promise 100% availability, although our track record has been 99.9% over the last five years,” Tucker says. “Similarly, where there are fluctuations in performance, this is often due to the nuances of how each company connects to us rather than the speed of the system itself. I have made, and will continue to make, every investment possible to support customers.”