Aftermarket Insider - January/February 2010 - (Page 9)

CommuniCation is key T e c h n o l o g y u p d aT e Shop of Tomorrow: The Future is NOW B y: sco tt luckett During AAPEX, we spent three days listening to members and demonstrating the technology made possible, in part, by standards developed by AAIA. What we heard was complete validation of what we have long believed – that when shop equipment and systems can communicate with each other, the whole shop network becomes much more powerful and valuable than the sum of its parts. Modern vehicle service shops require an array of technology to manage the operation, serve up vast amounts of information, and actually diagnose and service vehicles in the bays. A typical shop has multiple computer systems and computer-based service equipment from various disconnected vendors. In the best scenario, there may be some integration between the shop management system and the service and repair information. There may even be an electronic parts catalog and online ordering application engineered into the system. But, each of these is an example of one-off engineering and the components are not interchangeable. They are “hard-wired,” inflexible and proprietary integrations. In the Shop of Tomorrow at AAPEX, we demonstrated how standardsbased shop technology could be interconnected with relative ease. Most important of all, we learned how the efficiency and work flow of the shop could benefit from such integration. In a matter of weeks before the show, we integrated shop management with a single data mine could make valuable management and CRM data more accessible. The benefits of an interconnected shop include less paper and wasted effort; more productive technicians and service advisors; increased customer satisfaction and management controls. Shop owners and operators told us, “This is how my shop should operate.” To make the Shop of Tomorrow a reality today requires that software and service equipment vendors incorporate the i•SHOP standards in their products. i•SHOP is the industry standard that enables the disparate technology of automotive service products communicate and add value to the shop. For more information about i•SHOP, visit www.ishopstandards.org. Scott Luckett is vice president, technology standards, for AAIA. AFTERMARKET INSIDER | JANUARY • FEBRUARY 2010 | 9 repair information — with diagnostics — with back shop alignment — with parts catalog and online special order. We demonstrated that no information had to be keyed into a computer more than once. Anything known by one system about the vehicle, the customer or the service work, was know by all systems. We demonstrated that no paper work order, no diagnostics results and no service results had to be printed until the final invoice and customer check-out. And we demonstrated that gathering all information about the work performed in the shop into http://www.aftermarket.org/tomorrow

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aftermarket Insider - January/February 2010

Aftermarket Insider - January/February 2010
Contents
President's Message
Association News
Branching Out with our Green Message
Government Affairs
Technology Update
Market Research
Member Profile
Toolbox: Co-workers
International Focus
It's All at AAPEX
Company Profile
Market Research

Aftermarket Insider - January/February 2010