Morris: We haven’t seen any changes. Dealers have not changed our discounts. In some cases our parts profit margins have actually improved. We always search for competitive prices, and assess whether our dealers are competitive with wholesale pricing. There have been situations when we’ve put bids on PartsTrader and identified suppliers with better discounts.

FB: Has PartsTrader caused cycle time delays?

McDaniel: The quoting period did cause us to occasionally miss part delivery cut-off times in the beginning. Deliveries weren’t made until the following day if quote submissions weren’t made long in advance. That was more of a problem with the two-hour period that was initially required. It’s much less of a problem with a 30-minute period. There’s typically plenty of time for the quoting process.

Those situations do still occur, though. We started using the direct order feature, which allows us to order parts directly from a specific supplier to avoid the quoting process. State Farm is fine with that. We still have to balance cycle time with price, so there is no problem with making a direct order if cycle time is at risk.

Hunsaker: Although State Farm has reduced the quoting period to 30 minutes, suppliers don’t always get back with quotes in that amount of time. I have great vendors, too. They just don’t have time to submit all the quotes. That causes longer waiting periods or follow-up, and parts have regularly been delayed.

Huffstutler: PartsTrader has not slowed us down at all. I actually consider the quoting period as an opportunity for productive time. We use that time to get vehicles fully torn down and ready for repair, and record all necessary photos and documentation. Those pre-repair tasks take the same amount of time as the quoting period. Our cycle time has improved from an average of 4.2 days to 3.7 days after implementing PartsTrader.