A1 ADAS Promotes Jamie Willis As Workshop ADAS Choices Expand

A1 ADAS Group has appointed Jamie Willis as Business Development Director, creating a new position as it expands sales across ADAS equipment, mobile calibration and remote diagnostics. The appointment comes nine months after Willis joined the business and highlights a broader aftermarket question: when should workshops invest in their own ADAS capability, and when is outsourced support the stronger commercial option?

Willis will lead A1 ADAS Group’s sales function, covering new business development and existing customer relationships, while also developing partnerships across the wider automotive sector. He joined A1 in 2025 as Business Relationship Manager, bringing almost 30 years of automotive industry experience across technical, workshop management, customer-facing and commercial positions.

The creation of a dedicated business development director role is primarily an organisational change at A1, but the portfolio Willis has been tasked with selling reflects a more consequential development for independent repairers. Workshops increasingly have choices over how they access ADAS calibration and diagnostic capability rather than facing a simple decision over whether to purchase equipment.

A1 operates across workshop equipment, mobile calibration and remote diagnostics, allowing customers to use different combinations of owned and externally provided capability. For bodyshops, garages, windscreen businesses and fleets, that potentially changes the investment calculation as ADAS-equipped vehicles account for more repair work.

“Our aim isn’t simply to supply equipment or services. It’s to become a long-term technical partner that customers know they can rely on whenever they need advice or support,” Willis said.

“Every business has different priorities, whether that’s available space, budget, workflow or future growth plans. Our job is to understand what they’re trying to achieve before recommending a solution, rather than trying to fit everyone into the same box.”

From Equipment Purchase To Service Model

For workshop operators, the increasingly important question is not simply whether access to ADAS calibration is required, but how that capability should be delivered.

An in-house system can give a business greater control over scheduling and potentially retain more revenue from each calibration. It also brings requirements around capital expenditure, suitable workshop space, technician competence, equipment utilisation and maintaining the processes needed to carry out calibrations correctly.

Outsourcing through mobile calibration or accessing diagnostic expertise remotely changes that cost structure. It can provide access to specialist capability without requiring a workshop to replicate every element internally, particularly where volumes are inconsistent or physical space is constrained.

That does not make one model inherently better than another. The commercial case depends on factors including calibration volumes, vehicle mix, workflow, equipment and training costs, outsourcing charges and the value a workshop places on controlling the complete repair process.

The emergence of providers offering several routes is therefore significant because workshops can potentially move between models as volumes develop. A business might initially outsource specialist work, adopt selected capabilities internally as demand grows and continue using external expertise for jobs that remain uneconomic to perform itself.

Tyre News Media has previously reported on A1 ADAS's live calibration demonstrations at Automechanika Birmingham, while Willis's original appointment to A1 came as the company was expanding its mobile calibration, remote diagnostics and equipment activities.

The Economics Become The Next Question

A1 Managing Director Richard Taylor said the new position reflected the development of the business and its growth plans.

“Creating this role reflects both how far the business has come and where we’re heading next,” Taylor said. “Jamie has made a significant impact in the nine months since joining A1. He understands our culture, our customers and what makes the business different.”

For the wider aftermarket, however, the more useful question is where the economic crossover between outsourced and in-house ADAS capability sits.

There is unlikely to be a universal answer. A high-throughput bodyshop with predictable calibration demand has a different investment case from a smaller mechanical workshop encountering ADAS work intermittently. Tyre retailers moving further into mechanical servicing may face another calculation again, particularly where wheel alignment, suspension work or other operations create opportunities to capture a greater share of the vehicle repair process.

Reliable comparisons would require evidence on equipment acquisition and financing costs, technician training, productive workshop space, calibration frequency, utilisation and the prices charged for outsourced services. Those economics, rather than equipment specifications alone, are likely to determine when bringing ADAS work in-house becomes commercially attractive.

As the ADAS-equipped vehicle parc expands, that crossover point should become increasingly important. The businesses supplying the aftermarket are consequently competing not only on calibration technology, but on the operating model through which workshops can access it.

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Tags: A1 ADAS Group, Jamie Willis, ADAS calibration, workshop calibration, remote diagnostics, mobile ADAS calibration, workshop equipment, automotive aftermarket, ADAS investment, garage technology

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