The Auto Care Association’s Technology team is pleased to launch a monthly Auto Care Tech blog series titled, “What the Tech?” This series will dive into our two leading industry standards for information exchange ACES & PIES among other technology-related topics in the automotive aftermarket industry.


What The Tech Banner 2

 

  • April 24, 2023

    Communifire is moving!

    We wanted to continue to provide a one-stop location for the content, events, conversations, and projects by providing a closer connection to the data within autocarevip.com. This has us moving the features that you have come to expect in communifire which will be incorporated into the autocarevip.com site.

  • April 10, 2023

    The Scoop on the “Loop” in PIES™

    PIES™️ standardizes not only the field definitions and requirements, but also standardizes the delivery mechanism used to transfer the information provided in PIES™️ XML files. It is designed in a flexible format, which allows you to “loop” (repeat) elements within a segment element group, as many times needed to meet data delivery requirements. Learn how looping occurs and more in this article.

  • January 23, 2023

    Resolutions, Real-time Data and Release Notes

    We are excited to provide these new enhancements! We hope these will help you with accessing the latest content quickly so you can sell more parts. Release notes can be found at autocarevip.com. A list of publication dates will be added to the release notes. If you have any questions, contact the Auto Care Standards team at technology@autocare.org.

  • November 28, 2022

    Leveraging the PIES Interchange Segment

    PIES Interchange Segment can help the manufacturer provide its part numbers connected to Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) part numbers and other aftermarket part numbers that are similar.

  • August 26, 2022

    VCdb Expands to Four New Latin America Countries

    This month, we will highlight four new Latin American countries that we started offering vehicle data for in the VCdb. In the coming months as research is completed, new vehicles for these countries will be added to the Latin America VCdb. The latest vehicles were added to the Latin America VCdb for the following countries: Bolivia Dominican Republic Guatemala Panama

  • July 28, 2022

    Auto Care Association Expanding ACES and PIES Reach in Peru, Ecuador

    During a time when the global aftermarket industry is facing unprecedented challenges, data becomes critical to stay current and succeed in the global marketplace. In North America, businesses in the automotive aftermarket benefit from industry-developed data standards ACES and PIES, which enable companies to be more efficient in communicating product information with their trading partners.

  • July 19, 2022

    STEP RIGHT UP: Get Your Brand Code Here!

    You have decided you are going to start to use the Auto Care databases VCdb, Qdb, PCdb, PAdb and Brand Table. Now you’re asking, “What’s the first step?” A great place to start is with the Brand Table. The Brand Table database is a standardized reference to facilitate the management and exchange of the parent company of the brand, brands and subbrands that are used throughout the industry. There are more than 2,000 brands in the Brand Table, and no subscription is required to access it within the autocarevip.com site.

  • June 3, 2022

    What’s new in autocarevip.com?

    Wow, many new and exciting updates are taking place within the autocarevip.com site this year. In our previous blog post, we talked about the new content added to the Vehicle Configuration Database (VCdb). This month, we will highlight a few new features that content professionals can take advantage of while working within the autocarevip.com site. These new features include “Notifications”, “New Coverage”, “Discussions” and “Cases.” “Notifications” and “New Coverage” allow you to review and take advantage of the latest and greatest content that can help you get your products to market faster. Have questions about how to use these databases? You may not be alone. Use “Discussions” and “Cases” to engage the community of like-minded individuals to help improve your knowledge and the content that drives the industry.

  • April 21, 2022

    Revolutionize Your Digital Assets with the Latest Best Practices Guide

    April 5, 2022, marked the beginning of the 90-day review for the industry to take a look at the last update of the Digital Asset Best Practice document, with July 4, 2022, for its next release. The Digital Asset Best Practice document was released on the autocare.communifire.com site in the technology standards space. Once this file is released it will be moved to the Auto Care Digital Hub. In this blog post, I will provide a brief history of the Digital Assets Best Practice Guide, what has been updated and a few benefits that you will be able to take advantage of with this latest release.

  • March 16, 2022

    We’ve got you covered. Here’s how we provide our VCdb coverage.

    The Auto Care Standards team has been asked by the subscriber community how we’re able to get the data into the Vehicle Configuration database (VCdb) at a faster pace year after year. The subscriber community has asked for more vehicles, more vehicle configurations and more countries. Despite the increasing demands for more data, this is being accomplished with “over 40,000 change requests processed in the February 2022 publication for the VCdb,” said Milt Grimes, lead ACES analyst, Auto Care Association. In this blog post, we will focus on the change requests for new coverage to answer this question.

larsen

I'm Jonathan

I help reduce cost out of the overall supply chain by improving the quality of standards data we provide to the industry and develop new processes that help get data to our members faster.

More About Me

 


 

Browse

other blogs