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If there is one thing that characterises GT Motive, a company specialised in developing technological solutions to optimise vehicle repair management, it is its firm commitment to innovation and the talent of the people who are part of the company. Always with one goal: to create technologically advanced and highly profitable tools for the market. This is the case of NextGen, its recent and innovative vehicle documentation system that perfects the GT Estimate appraisal tool, with more detailed and complete information and easier access and use. The result: a greater contribution of efficiency and reliability to your workshop, leasing company and insurance company customers. José Díaz Trasancos, GT Motive Database Contents Manager, has been at the forefront of this technological development.

How did you come up with the idea of a project like NextGen to improve qualitatively and quantitatively the process of vehicle documentation that you do at GT Motive?

At GT Motive, our customers are at the core of everything we do. They are our raison d’être. That focus on our customers is engraved in the company’s DNA. We have always paid a great deal of attention to the changing needs of our customers. We have been evolving our solutions to the rhythm of their needs to help them in their management of claims, with the most innovative technology, in an increasingly efficient way.

However, there has been a recent moment when these have undergone a qualitative change. As a matter of fact, it is a change that has only just begun. The automotive sector is in full transformation: new technologies, new forms of mobility, driving assistance systems, hybrid engines, electric vehicles… These are phenomena that are already part of our daily lives and that have effects on both the professional and the business activities of our customers.

NextGen has its origin, precisely, in the attentive listening to these new needs. In order to maintain their efficiency and competitiveness, repair shops, renting and insurance companies require appraisal tools with even more precise and complete technical and pricing information. This means that a very important effort had to be made to document all these part numbers —and we’re talking about an awful lot of them— linked to new equipment that is being added to the most modern vehicles, which are the main drivers of the new mobility. In short, we had to develop and implement an advanced solution to continue simplifying the work of our customers. This solution is NextGen, a proprietary design and production system that embodies a level never before known in the processing and incorporation of technical and pricing information into the vehicle database of the GT Estimate appraisal tool.

What specific advantages do GT Estimate users obtain with the NextGen vehicle documentation system?

Efficiency. It’s the key word. With the new NextGen documentation system, repair shops as well as leasing and insurance companies substantially improve their everyday claims management. Easily and smoothly. On the one hand, because they have access to much more information on the most modern vehicles, which is increasingly critical when it comes to making an appraisal of the new parts built into the sophisticated cars of the new mobility era. On the other hand, because this contribution of more comprehensive and detailed information translates into maximum reliability in the identification of spare parts, avoiding errors, inconveniences and over costs arising from potential waste of time in claims management.

What about the tool? How is GT Estimate enhanced with the NextGen system?

As for the added value that NextGen brings to GT Estimate, we can synthesize its contribution in terms of the vehicles documented in four ideas: more models, more part numbers, more detail and more ease of use. In 2019, 11 % more models will be added to the database, and 25 % more by 2020. At the same time, the number of part numbers per model will also be increased by up to 20 %. All with an unprecedented level of retail that will provide accurate part numbers of all spare parts, regardless of size, price or complexity. In addition, a new, previously unknown standard of user-friendliness has been set: with optimised VIN Query features, users can identify each and every one of the parts of the equipment relevant to the appraisal by entering the digits of vehicles identification numbers (VINs). 

How is a powerful process transformation like the generation and implementation of a radically innovative system as NextGen managed internally?

People, method and technology. These are the three fundamental factors for successfully triggering a transformation of the way of doing things like what NextGen has meant.

First, it is essential to encourage and stimulate the talent of the people involved. If they do not know and share the vision that underpins change in the way they do things, they will hardly be able to deploy their skills and competencies as this type of process requires. In this regard, training is the best ally. One of the priority measures for the activation of the NextGen project was training. It was as much about reviewing and updating the skills of our technicians as it was about engaging them; that’s how operational ideas for improvement came about.

With the people, the professionals involved in the project fully aware of the vision and committed to it, it is much easier to deploy the approach. In the case of NextGen, we decided to apply the techniques of the LEAN method. In essence, we work on flowcharts in which we define the value chain that we, as a company, bring to our customers. We identify and optimise the processes that provide the highest value. We are more efficient and we give customers what they need when they need it.

People, method… and technology. Radically innovative. From what we are and what we know, from the knowledge and expertise accumulated over the years with GT Motive, connecting with current technological possibilities. For developing the NextGen system, a process automation strategy was designed by implementing complex algorithms that support a massive use of data and information sources, designed and developed by our engineering departments. The data provided by vehicle manufacturers are increasingly structured; moving them massively, in an automated way, with efficiency criteria, makes work easier, increases the productivity of vehicle documentation processes and avoids errors. All these advantages are what NextGen offers our customers, directly saving them time and money.