Raising the Bar in Aftermarket Training

Core to the Academy is a single core course that walks users through the entire vehicle glass replacement process: from the moment the vehicle enters the workshop and is pre-checked, through protection and preparation, to bonding, curing and final handover – including ADAS calibration so that automatic braking and lane-keeping systems work as intended. This course is being rolled out region by region and adapted by local Sika organizations, who add regional specifics while keeping the process and safety standards harmonized worldwide. 

Interactive videos filmed in realistic workshop environments replace static slide decks, allowing technicians to experience the process in a practical setting. Short quizzes after each module keep technicians engaged, help them test their knowledge, and ensure that learning sticks before they move on. When participants finish, they receive an official Sika certification and a downloadable certificate they can also showcase on LinkedIn – a tangible stamp of quality for both technicians and workshop owners.  

For Sika, the Academy is about more than e-learning. It is a way to stay closer to, and share trusted expertise with, the people who use our products every day. Large fitting chains are already using the video modules to onboard new technicians and get them Sika-certified quickly, while smaller repair networks, who often lack formal training routes, can now access the same high-quality technical content for free. 

The decision to make the program openly available signals a high level of confidence in not just Sika’s methods and materials, but in the power of knowledge-sharing within the industry. It also reflects Sika’s broader ambition of enabling safer, more efficient processes across markets, ensuring everyone has access to the same up-to-date practices.  

Few things hurt a workshop more than a comeback: a water leak or safety concern that forces a technician to cut out a freshly bonded windshield and start again, losing both time and money. The Academy addresses this by focusing on the most critical steps where jobs can fail.

One example is the pre-treatment and cleaning of the glass. Since it can be challenging for repair and replacement shops to identify lower-quality or contaminated glass, correct cleaning and surface preparation are among the most vital preparation steps. The course explains how to use Sika’s pre-treatment system, including activator and primer, to create the best possible bonding surface, reduce the risk of adhesion failures, and get the most out of optimized materials such as advanced polyurethane adhesives.

Safety is a fundamental aspect of every module: from protecting the vehicle during work, handling solvents and equipment correctly, to ensuring that bonded glass contributes to crash performance and ADAS functionality as intended. By following a standardized process, technicians not only protect drivers and passengers, but also their staff from health-related risks and their own business from avoidable rework.  

Sika Automotive Aftermarket Academy builds on Sika’s position as a market leader in product innovation and quality in vehicle glass replacement and translates that leadership into a unified training experience. By digitizing and harmonizing what used to be fragmented, event-based training days, Sika is creating a new benchmark for how aftermarket technicians learn, certify, and keep their skills up to date. Customers who have already adopted Sika’s online trainings for their rollouts – in some cases across hundreds of branches – are seeing a faster and more consistent onboarding of new technicians, with a shared understanding of process, safety and quality standards. As more regions come online, the Automotive Aftermarket Academy will increasingly function as a common global reference point: a place where experienced specialists, new technicians, insurers and even OEM partners can see exactly how auto glass replacement is performed in the Sika way – continually contributing to a safer, more efficient automotive aftermarket.