Auto industry investing in AI

Syncron uses A.I. to create products designed to help automakers and dealers improve supply processes for replacement parts. A.I. enables dealerships to save money by maintaining leaner parts inventories and ordering fewer parts that are likely to be returned to the automaker or become obsolete, says Gary Brooks, Syncron CEO to Autonews. Software systems monitor dealerships’ parts orders to automakers. Algorithms analyse supply and demand patterns to learn about parts runs in specific regions. Brooks says Syncron's software has helped some automakers increase their fill rate — the share of customer parts demand that is met through immediate dealership stock availability — from 60 to 90 percent. The “smart parts” can send data about use and wear directly to the software, Brooks says. The AI systems not only predict parts failures, he says, but help automakers price replacement parts more accurately by analysing sales trends. Mazda North American Operations is using A.I. to help transform its parts distribution system from managing a network based on regional centres to creating a global supply chain, says Robert Davis, Mazda's senior vice president for special assignments. "Our wish list is to have the technology to be able to predict a parts failure on a car, communicate it to the dealer, to the parts distribution centre, all the way back to the core supplier," Davis told Fixed Ops Journal. Such an AI-based system, Davis says, also will notify the vehicle owner: "It looks like a part will be failing on your car within the next 3,000 miles, so why not bring it in so we can fix it? The part will be here." Repair order fill rate is a better measure than overall fill rate, Davis says. "If your car needs three parts, and I only have two in stock, those two parts become completely irrelevant," he says.