AI for heavy duty truck parts distributors, tested on core returns and fleet bids you already closed.

A returned core is a credit waiting on paperwork. In September 2016 six supplier and remanufacturing associations, MERA and APRA among them, agreed on shared descriptions for their industry. A core, they said, is a previously sold, worn or non-functional part intended for remanufacturing. It is not waste or scrap, and it isn't meant to be reused before that process. So a worn starter landing on your counter is neither trash nor stock. It is a credit your customer expects and one your supplier may or may not honor, and the paper around it decides which.

Federal guides police the words on your paper. The FTC's guides for rebuilt, reconditioned and other used automobile parts, at 16 CFR Part 20, reach parts designed for trucks and tractors as well as cars. Section 20.3 treats the word rebuilt as deceptive unless the product was taken apart as needed, cleaned, and had worn or missing parts restored or replaced, and the word remanufactured as deceptive unless that work happened at a factory generally engaged in rebuilding that type of product. A bid sheet or a return record has to keep those words exactly as the supplier used them. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

Public buyers draw their own weight line. Westchester County, New York's medium and heavy duty truck parts award, RFB-WC-23090, is limited to aftermarket replacement parts for Class 5 and above chassis and cab trucks over 16,000 pounds GVWR, and it also serves the county's political subdivisions. Its first section sets a discount off the manufacturer's list price, one row per book: price book, price book number, current price book date and discount. Its second section allows a markup above vendor cost only as a secondary option for parts the primary agreements don't cover, and makes the department placing the order verify that cost. On the extension running through March 15, 2027, one price book still shows a current date of July 1, 2021.

The manufacturer can be the line item. Tarrant County, Texas's Bid 2020-195, an annual contract for OEM heavy duty equipment and truck parts and supplies, gives each manufacturer a numbered section with two entries, a percent discount and a price list, and marks the winners primary, secondary or alternate. One primary award cites a published list price dated 2/1/20. Every sheet of this kind your team has filled in shows your reviewer what a correct draft should have named.

Shops and catalogs keep separate vocabularies. ATA's Technology & Maintenance Council is the official custodian of VMRS, the coding convention fleets use to track maintenance costs, and its Code Key 18 holds more than 90 codes for why parts fail, with out of balance as 25 and seized as 37. On the catalog side, the Auto Care Association announced on January 27, 2020 that HDDA: Heavy Duty had rolled out a heavy duty expansion of PIES, the Product Information Exchange Standard, with 20 product categories, more than 9,000 components and more than 63,000 attributes. A distributor stands between those two languages and the paper in front of the counter.

One limit covers both jobs. The proof of concept never touches your parts system, a live order or a live bid. It never issues a credit, prices a bid or decides whether a core is acceptable. A person at your counter or in accounting issues every credit, and an inside salesperson approves every price sheet. Defense and aerospace work is out of scope.