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| Open Standards Diagnostics Levels the Service Landscape |
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| Written by Bob Chabot | ||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 26 July 2009 17:14 | ||||||||||||||||
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SERVICE INFORMATION
“OEMs like Toyota believe that Open Standards Diagnostics (OSD) solutions can reshape the global automobile service and repair industry business model." Industry collaboration on OSD solutions has the potential to drive uniform, effective and affordable vehicle service and repair capability into all shops – whether independent or dealership-based and regardless of their size or vehicle counts. Service Support For Shops is Approaching Critical Condition “The current business model for aftermarket general repair is broken, and it gets more broken every day,” Saxonberg says. It’s true that service information has become readily available directly from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other third-party information provider Web sites, such as Mitchell 1 and AllData, all at a reasonable cost. Yet as vehicle technology and associated service technologies continue to gain in complexity and then proliferate across all vehicle systems commonly supported in the aftermarket, the necessity to use this information for nearly every routine repair is becoming unavoidable. To further complicate matters, the pace of change is accelerating. The drivers for this change are diverse: increasingly stringent emissions and safety standards; consumer demand for improved fuel economy; a revolution in enabling electronic technologies, such as high-speed onboard networks and multiplexing; and competition-driven creature comforts, such as GPS navigation systems and infotainment options. This means that independent shops face far more instances where they need to use service information as well as scan tools to perform routine repairs. And while factory scan tools are readily available to independent repairers, the cost of investing in these tools for most shops across a broad spectrum of brands is prohibitive, leading to gaps in a shop’s service readiness coverage. These gaps become more profound with every passing model year. This is where the business model has broken down, asserts Saxonberg. “To be service-ready for customers, full-service repair operations also require daily access to affordable ‘factory equivalent’ scan tools and job-appropriate service information for the tasks at hand,” Saxonberg notes. “In addition, to diagnose and repair, technicians require a fundamental understanding of how these complex systems work. Even routine services — tires and wheels, braking and dynamic controls, front ends and suspensions — require the use of scan tools."
But the economics faced by aftermarket scan tool makers tend to limit the breadth and depth of diagnostic functions offered in aftermarket scan tools today. While these tool makers generally have access to the information they need to implement the same enhanced diagnostic functions that factory scan tools have, there is rarely a business case for them to do so. Consequently, even with the latest aftermarket scan tools, it is not unusual for a shop to find itself unable to perform some of the most fundamental services without access to a factory scan tool.
The Fix: Dialogue, Collaboration and Common Standards Several key developments over the last 10 years have laid the groundwork for automakers to be able to provide an aftermarket support model that meets the challenges now and on the horizon. First, a working, open dialogue between the aftermarket and automakers within the context of NASTF has flourished. This has led to Web-based, low-cost, short-term service information subscription options. In addition, the advent of industry-wide diagnostic interface standards — most notably the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) J2534 and International Standards Organization’s (ISO) 22900/01 standards — has opened eyes and minds to restructuring service support systems. When originally introduced as a reprogramming interface, SAE’s J2534 committee had the foresight to write the standard to support full diagnostics messaging between personal computer (PC) and vehicle. This means that any automaker’s diagnostic application can be written to the J2534-1 pass-thru communications standard to provide uniform low-cost diagnostic solutions to dealer and aftermarket shops alike. For diagnostics that require more hardware horsepower, the J2534-2 standard adds OEM proprietary functionality to “standardized” hardware. Several industry OEMs now base their diagnostic software on the J2534 standard and are considering various options to use OSD for their products. Moreover, the potential for the basis of a global service support solution is at hand. Unlike J2534 in North America, Europe has mandated the use of the less mature and yet untested ISO 22900 standard, also known as the Modular Vehicle Communication Interface (MVCI). The MCVI standard enables any automaker’s diagnostic software to be written to run on a PC, but as currently written, does not support the J2534 standard. Before MVCD is implemented, the opportunity for automakers who sell globally, regulators who govern regionally and the ISO 22900 committee to dialogue and agree to require that the MVCD standard include a firm requirement for a J2534 layer is clear, as it would allow a global service support solution for all.
Together, these developments are facilitating a fix for the broken aftermarket business model, making full service readiness readily accessible and affordable for all. One of the biggest challenges to getting all automakers to support OSD is overcoming the 30 years of inertia building distinct proprietary diagnostic tools. It is promising that while not a regulatory requirement, several automakers are already authoring OSD software leveraging the J2534 standard for their diagnostic interface hardware and using off-the-shelf laptop PCs to run diagnostic applications. Automaker finance departments like the lower cost associated with use of off-the-shelf diagnostic hardware viable in all worldwide markets. It also allows automakers to focus their financial and human resources on diagnostic software functionality. “Dealers and independent shops will like the idea of sub-$1,000 diagnostic points of presence that offer full diagnostic capabilities,” says Saxonberg. “Open standards diagnostics also hedges regulatory risk by ensuring that service support solutions built for dealers will work equally well in an aftermarket service environment,” notes Saxonberg. While automakers are not generally interested in more regulation of the industry, it is critical to continue nurturing the collaborative partnerships between automakers, aftermarket, tool and equipment firms and regulators to keep this emerging global auto repair industry solution on track. Doing so can help define a path forward and reduce the associated costs for all. Positive Ownership Experiences Sell Cars “A reputation for a positive ownership experience is one of the more important distinguishing attributes that sets an automaker apart from its competitors” says Saxonberg. “While design and quality engineers have a great deal of influence over brand satisfaction in the early stages of the ownership cycle, it is technicians in independent shops with the ability to deliver high quality, cost effective product support who have the most influence over that ownership experience in the later years of the ownership cycle.”
If properly implemented, managed and regulated, OSD promises to mend the broken service support business model that makes it difficult and costly to maintain products in the later years of their life cycle. Embracing this model will ultimately result in improved product support for consumers within and outside of franchised dealer networks at a lower overall cost for automakers. Automakers who put their customers first during product service life-cycle planning and in their service engineering development will reap big benefits in improved brand loyalty and cost savings moving forward. For those automakers that are slow to embrace this trend in OSD, their vehicles will become increasingly difficult to support outside dealerships. This breeds regulatory pressure with the good intent to encourage automakers to provide service support parity between aftermarket and franchised dealers. Unfortunately, regulated solutions that don’t emanate from a collaborative relationship between the regulator and regulated parties are generally lose-lose-lose solutions for everyone. Just imagine a service world wherein any technician is able to perform any diagnostic procedure, anywhere, at any time, using common off-the-shelf laptop PCs and generic J2534/MVCI interfaces, at an affordable cost-per-use. OSD offers a beginning-to-end, single software stream for automobile service and repair, and NASTF is uniquely positioned within the industry to leverage its relationships to help move towards this healthier and effective OSD-based service support model. "Getting there requires the OSD vision to be shared," Saxonberg states. "Most importantly, it requires everyone to get involved." (Sources: SAE Service Technology Program Committee, Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.)
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