Build a Parts Procurement Platform

Partly Infrastructure Overview

As vehicles become more complex, so do repair and finding the right parts. The vehicle repair industry traditionally relies on catalogues, quote-based processes, and parts interpretation, which can be unreliable, inefficient, and unscalable.

Partly has built the parts infrastructure, or “plumbing”, to make it easy for buyers to find the right parts. We provide the building blocks for fleet owners, repairers, or OEMs to build, customise, and scale a Parts Procurement Platform.

Customers can create their fully branded platforms with full control over customization and scaling. They can choose from business models including self-managed, co-managed, or Partly-run.

Parts Procurement Platform

A Parts Procurement Platform enables repairers and suppliers to transact in real-time, providing supply chain visibility across OEM, aftermarket, and recycled suppliers in one place.

Capabilites include:

• ‍Vehicle Identification: Input the license plate of VIN to instantly access the vehicle's build sheet information.
• Visual Damage Assessment: Select the areas needing repair and specify the severity of the damage.
• Smart Part Recommendations: Based on input and historical data, the platform recommends the necessary repair parts.
• Transparency: Gain real-time visibility into part availability across OEM, aftermarket, and recycled inventory. See location details and estimated shipping times - all in one place.
• Seamless Purchasing: Purchase parts directly on the platform, eliminating the need for multiple quotes.

Data Processing

Automotive data is notoriously complex to work with, due to:

• Raw data intended for manufacturing and parts interpretation, rather than commerce
• Non-standardised data formats used by each vehicle manufacturer
• Differing levels of data aggregation between supplier types (part vs assembly level).
• Huge volume of data
• Absolute requirement for accuracy

Due to these challenges, no one has successfully unified OEM, aftermarket, and recycled parts data in real time in a single platform.

So, how does Partly do this accurately and at scale?

Partly are experts in processing raw, complex automotive data from multiple sources and formats. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and human-assisted machine learning technology allow us to collect, standardise, verify, unify, and present complex parts data with precision and clarity.

Sourcing
‍We collaborate directly with OEM headquarters to securely license access to their proprietary data sources. Our use of this data strictly adheres to the terms of the OEM licenses, ensuring they retain full control and oversight.

‍Standardisations
OEM build sheet data comes in many different formats, from structured to unstructured. Partly’s in-house automotive experts define a universal data standard and utilise artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to convert raw OEM data inputs into the Partly structure at scale.

‍Data Quality Assurance
‍Partly have dedicated quality assurance teams who manually review the output data to ensure accuracy and integrity. Their feedback is continuously incorporated to refine and improve the machine learning models, resulting in an iterative process that drives ever-increasing data quality.

‍Data Unifications
‍Leveraging our standardised data model, Partly establishes part equivalencies that span OEM, aftermarket, and recycled components.

For the aftermarket, we've developed OpenBase, an industry-driven collaborative catalogue that adds structure and fills gaps and edge cases.

For recycled parts, our automotive experts have defined "Fundamental Assemblies", logical product groupings that align with how dismantlers remove parts from vehicles. This unification provides a comprehensive, holistic view across all parts sources.

‍Presentation
‍As the underlying data infrastructure provider, Partly enables flexible and customised utilisation tailored to each customer's needs.

For example, an OEM could leverage the platform to process and display just their proprietary parts data along with their own aftermarket brands. Data can also be licensed for specific projects rather than broad access.

This customisable approach, combined with granular licensing controls, empowers customers to surface our unified, high-quality data in whichever format best suits their particular use case.

Jobs

Within Partly's infrastructure, Jobs provides a repair-centric view of the overarching repair that needs to be completed. For example, if a vehicle needs a front-end collision repair, the repairer isn't just looking for a bumper replacement - they likely need a set of related parts like headlamps, clips, brackets and more. Rather than searching part numbers individually, Partly's Jobs functionality allows repairers to select the high-level repair job, like "Front End Repair."

Leveraging unified parts data enriched with historical repair data, Partly's system then intelligently recommends and groups together the commonly associated parts and components to comprehensively address that repair job. This curated view transforms granular OEM part data into a pragmatic, simplified parts purchasing aligned with how repair facilities operate.

PIM (Product Information Management)

Partly's infrastructure includes a next-generation Product Information Management (PIM) solution tailor-made for the automotive parts industry. Partly PIM handles complex parts data management at scale, allowing manufacturers and suppliers to consolidate all their product information into one centralized source of truth.

Capabilities include:

• Streamlined data onboarding through CSV uploads, API connections and data management apps
• Real-time data sharing between brand owners and their suppliers
• Product listings optimizasion tools including pricing rules per sales channel, titles and descriptions generation
• Instantly publishing to marketplaces, trade portals, websites and more

Implementation

Partly provides the infrastructure, allowing customers full flexibility in how they design and deploy their Parts Procurement Platform solution, aligning with their branding, operational processes, and system architecture requirements.

‍Branding
‍White-labeling and branding capabilities enable the platform to be fully customized and presented as the customer's own proprietary offering.

‍Onboarding
‍Customers have choices in how involved Partly is in onboarding suppliers, repair facilities, and managing network participation logistics like fees and charges - from full-service to co-managed to a hands-off approach.

‍Integrations
‍The API-first architecture allows seamless integration of Partly's parts data with customers' existing systems like ERP, inventory management and more. Implementation can be self-managed or built out by Partly's engineering team.

‍Custom apps
‍The underlying platform supports developing custom applications and solutions to meet unique business needs, leveraging Partly's unified parts data.