Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F29

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

BLOCKCHAIN
continued from Page 28

control over what other parties do with it, says
Kye Yeung, chairman of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists and owner of an independent repair shop in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Some automakers and suppliers require
body shops to share a broad range of information, Yeung says. They harvest data from collision repair estimates and orders, he adds.
The automaker Tesla collects "everything
from how much margin you made on the
parts to how long it took to place the order," he
says. "We don't know what they do with it, but
whatever information they get from us is being utilized somewhere."
Mitchell's blockchain initiative, he says,
"gives shops a reason why they shouldn't worry about sharing information."
Unlike bitcoin's blockchain, which is public,
Mitchell's network is based on a "permission"
blockchain. It will technically be "owned" by
everyone connected to it, with no central gatekeeper.

"You can think of it as trusting a council of
members," Baudoux says. "The members are
known entities and they can decide who has
access. Mitchell does not take full control."
This permission-based approach helps foster a secure, distributed network that can be
integrated with existing files and work flows,
Baudoux says.
Rydell Cars repairs an average of 650 vehicles a month, Sattler says. He worries that if
the system proves popular, it may run slowly
when thousands of users encrypt and transfer
memory-intense files such as estimates with
dozens of photos. Adding several minutes to
the time needed to process each estimate
would quickly add up, he says.
Such delays have afflicted networks for
cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, but Mitchell
says its permission blockchain doesn't require the kind of computing power, or time,
needed for transaction verifications on a public chain such as bitcoin's.
Mitchell will make the blockchain application part of the company's existing systems,
beginning with its estimating software. Cur-

rent Mitchell clients will
get first crack at the service this fall, with an application for nonclient users
to follow. For now, Mitchell says it does not plan to
charge a premium for the
blockchain technology.

No free lunch

Yeung: Wary of
data sharing

Sattler, whose company is a Mitchell customer, is skeptical about that offer.
"They have a great product, but I'd like to
hear their 24- to 36-month plan for people
who aren't Mitchell clients," he says. "Technology is not free."
Still, blockchain seems likely to become an
inevitable component of vehicle repair, both
collision and mechanical. Autonomous vehicles will require a higher standard of maintenance and repair accountability, Biggs says.
Automakers are developing blockchains to
track factory scrappage, he adds.
"The chain itself is almost the public utility
of the vehicle of the future," Biggs says. 

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018