What if your technicians could put on a pair of safety glasses and be able to access all kinds of service information within the lenses?
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Or have DIYers or service advisors be able to pull up information from their retailers and distributors by scanning a QR code or using a catalog app on their smartphone.
These applications no longer are futuristic, but rather available now and in the next couple of years, according to Derek Kaufman, president C3 Network Inc. “We are going through this evolution at a rather fast speed,” he told attendees of the Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium (GAAS).
The aftermarket will become more in-tune with technology outside the vehicle as ways to get information and repair today’s vehicles. As this happens, Kaufman says there are five moves to make mobile apps meaningful in the future:
• catalog evolution
• augmented reality and near eye technology
• sensors
• actionable data leading to resolution
• understanding cash flow.
Starting at the top of the list, Kaufman explains that when it comes to catalogs, if it’s online, you can connect your catalog to a smartphone. Beyond that, these apps let you know the location of the parts you want to look up.
The next evolution of a catalog is to make the actions you’re doing with the data more in your hand. Now you can look up a part, but also get all kinds of information on the part and you can think of how you can use it, Kaufman says.
“We’re getting our arms around it really at light speed. And we’re taking it further and further,” he notes
And while the service advisors or techs are looking up the catalogs on their smartphones, the technicians can take the technology further.
Kaufman says that you can think of the next level of apps as a pair of safety glasses with video and app features. He thinks that we’ll see this in the next two years on a pretty regular basis, and cites Vuzix glasses as one example.
Other technology already is here, like sensors. Today’s sensors can track anything on vehicles from refrigeration trucks to locations and have the information sent back to a smartphone or computer system.
Between the sensors and other technologies, Kaufman explains that companies today are gathering data and using it to solve problems and make vehicle systems better. He uses the company Skyline as an example, as the company uses comprehensive data acquisition to turn every vehicle into a battery test laboratory.
It’s combining the sensors, technology and other drivers together to make use of the information you now can gather.
“Data’s data. But if you put it in a database and you don’t do anything with it, all you’ve done is create the greatest mining opportunity for lawyers in the country,” Kaufman says. “I’ve always said making this thing actionable is the best way to make this thing useful.”
Then you need to think about all of these new and developing technologies coming together and generating cash flow. He summarizes that cash equals relevance, including saving time, finding locations and making your day more efficient, faster education times, real time data analysis, reduced delivery trips and much more.
Whatever technology we start to use in the aftermarket in the near future, it’s changing, and Kaufman says we are in the early days still, and you can just imagine what’s next.
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