Aftermarket Insider Issue 74 - (Page 10)

T EC H N o l o G Y U P DAT E motoring up Do It Faster… Do It Better… Do It NOW! AAIA and MOTOR Partner for Greater Efficiency in Vehicle Research the year, make and model, the VCdb lists and validates more than 40 other attributes of late model, light duty vehicles in North America. These extended attributes include the engine, transmission, brakes, body style, drive type and more. Today the practice is to publish nothing about a vehicle until we can publish everything about that vehicle. There are no partial vehicle records. Using this technique, MOTOR still manages to publish more than 90 percent of the new model year cars and trucks within 30 days of their availability in the showroom. But that’s not soon enough and we’ve devised a way to do it faster. Under a program called “VCdb Efficiency,” MOTOR is retooling their processes to be able to publish basic vehicle information much sooner than is possible today – and follow that with the remaining vehicle attributes in stages. This four-stage process will begin with the base vehicle and base engine information in stage one, and conclude with all of the AAIAdefined attributes fully populated and the publication of a complete vehicle configuration record. Studies have told us that more than 50 percent of light duty parts catalog applications rely on nothing more than the year, make, model (base vehicle) to identify the correct part-to-vehicle relationship. Another 20 percent of sales require engine size and displacement (in addition to YMM) to ID the correct part. VCdb Efficiency will allow AAIA to publish the needed vehicle information months before vehicles appear in the showrooms, can happen with application parts until we’ve identified the year, make and model – some folks say, the “YMM.” It’s the key that unlocks OE parts research, service and technical information, collision data and, of course, electronic catalog information. The heart of the AAIA electronic catalog exchange standard (ACES) is the Vehicle Configuration database (VCdb) – a YMM table on steroids. And no catalog data can be tagged In the aftermarket, nothing to the VCdb and sent to the point of sale in the standard format until ACES includes the latest new model year vehicles. AAIA needs to add new vehicles to the reference database faster. This will get new applications to the point-of-sale sooner. And, that will increase sales across the aftermarket. MOTOR Information Systems is the principal partner to AAIA in researching and publishing the ACES Vehicle Configuration database. Besides 10 | AFTERMARKET INSIDER | VOLUME 74 http://www.aftermarket.org/Technology/ACES.aspx

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aftermarket Insider Issue 74

Aftermarket Insider Issue 74
President’s Message
A Celebration Campaign
Association News
Inside Technology
Member Profile
Toolbox: Qr Codes
International Focus
AAIA Market Intelligence: Don’t Do Business Without It!
Association News
Segment Spotlight
Government Affairs
Industry News

Aftermarket Insider Issue 74