The heavy duty truck and tools and equipment markets are evolving more rapidly than ever. The emergence of new go-to-market distribution models (including web-based distribution models) serving these industries, the increasing pressure of global competition, continued parts and vehicle proliferation and the possible availability of certain vehicle parts application information in the heavy duty market make this an exciting but challenging environment. These changes exacerbate the need for much improved supplier catalog data consistency, quality and speed-to-market in order to retain distribution system competitiveness. In effect, the future will see the “survival of the fittest.”
There are clearly significant differences between the needs of light duty and heavy duty/tool and equipment markets, and many different approaches have been discussed to address the need for better, more consistent catalog data availability for these marketplaces. However, the PIES (Product Information Exchange Standards) standards, as owned and maintained by the Auto Care Association, provide a relatively flexible and adaptable set of guidelines that also accommodate inclusion of a wide range of associated, market specific, guidelines such as VMRS codes. In light of the Auto Care Association’s announcement that it intends to continue development of heavy duty truck product information standards utilizing its current PIES standards as a baseline, OptiCat will be working with Auto Care as the standards evolve to insure that suppliers and supplier data are kept current and effective. In fact, one of the activities that will be central to OptiCat’s efforts will be to assist suppliers, distributors and Auto Care (including its designated third party technical support suppliers) in developing product category and attribute designations under the standards. OptiCat has been working with this process for many years and has the experience needed, over time, to help insure process success for all parties.
With this in mind, OptiCat has announced the availability of two new services:
- For suppliers, OptiCat can make available a new data template system within its OnBoard Pro product that suppliers can use for each of their unique parts categories to speed achieving PIES compliance. Once the template is initially populated by the supplier with its own unique data, OptiCat can translate this information into a PIES format file and provide the supplier with a PIES compliant file that can then be easily provided to distributor customers and other data receivers via the OptiCat OnBoard Pro system. This information can be provided to distributors in a variety of formats and even customized for those with special needs. As part of this, OptiCat is urging suppliers to focus attention on “PAdb”, or “Parts Attribute data base” fields that, when populated by suppliers, will allow attribute searches by users. PAdb includes attributes such as Dimensions, Material, Volts and numerous other product attribute data fields that help to uniquely define the product. OptiCat believes this capability, which a few suppliers have already developed for their own use on their web sites, will become an important product differentiator for suppliers as they go to market.
- For distributors and other data receivers, OptiCat recognizes that many have significant investments in their current data system capabilities and rely on their effective operation as part of their basic business models. Therefore, OptiCat will work with each data receiver to develop appropriate data streams that meet their needs. Many of them can already accept machine-readable, PIES compliant information to feed their own ERP systems and this makes the entire system highly efficient. However, while OptiCat uses PIES compliant information internally, it can export in a variety of formats consistent with data receiver needs such as Excel spreadsheets and others.
One important consideration for suppliers as they consider updating their data capabilities is the cost and resources needed to effect the transition. OptiCat’s development of its “template approach” provides a permanent solution for a supplier that circumvents the need for the supplier to develop in-house XML programming capabilities (“Extensible Machine Language”… this is the machine readable language used by the PIES standards). Once populated, data updates are done using the same template. As changes occur in the PIES standards, the template is also appropriately updated.
Once supplier information is loaded into OptiCat’s OnBoard system via the template, the supplier’s part attribute searchable data can be sent out to literally hundreds of distributors and data receivers within hours of uploading with the knowledge that is was securely delivered and received by only the data receivers that were selected by the supplier.
Bryan Thueson COO of OptiCat, stated, “The challenge of updating data systems to meet the needs of the future is clearly a key to ongoing success. OptiCat is directly addressing this challenge by providing tools that can help deal with compatibility between the supplier’s own internal systems capabilities and the demands by customers for information that is compatible with their own systems. OptiCat’s new service allows suppliers to achieve the latest PIES standards with minimal disruption and cost and have this information translated into information that is quickly and effectively usable by customers.”
Blake Barson, OptiCat’s National Accounts Manager for Heavy Duty added, “OptiCat’s new products are particularly interesting to those suppliers serving industry product segments that are not application specific or “vehicle year, make and model” focused, and the attribute search capabilities offered are a great supplier product differentiator. With our knowledge of the PIES environment, we can get suppliers up-and-running quickly and effectively. Many customers in the product distribution chain now require PIES compliant data and we believe even more will in the future. These new OptiCat services provide significant opportunities for suppliers to improve their relationships with their customers.”
