All manufacturers and distributors who have their own brand need to create equivalences between their products and part numbers of their competitors, suppliers or major brands. For this reason, they usually create and maintain huge matrices of equivalences of this type in spreadsheets:
If we take into account that there are brands with extensive ranges with more than 20,000 numbers, that there are hundreds of brands on the market, and that in addition, there are OE, OEM part numbers, commercial part numbers, different ranges (premium range, rebuilt, etc.), different formats for writing the part number (beginning with or without 0), etc. etc., How many equivalences do we need to define to express all these relationships that exist in the market between part numbers?
So let’s simplify the data that actually exists in reality, to try to quickly calculate an approximate figure of the equivalences that should be defined:
200 main parts types (alternators, turbochargers, brake discs…) x 1000 part numbers in each range x 10 OE part numbers x 2 (commercial codifications, ranges, etc.) x 35 brands, we have: 200 x 1000 x 2 x 35 x (2 x 35) = 980,000,000 IAMequivalences and 200 x 1000 x 2 x 35 x 10 OEs = 140,000,000 OE equivalences
3000 types of NON-main parts (Depressor rotor, Steering shaft, Oil pressure sensor…) x 200 part numbers in the range x 5 OE part numbers x 1.2 (commercial codifications, ranges, etc.) x 15 brands, we have: 3000 x 200 x 1.2 x 15 x (1.2 x 15) = 194,400,000 IAM equivalences and 3000 x 200 x 1.2 x 15 x 5 OEs = 54,000,000 OE equivalences
8000 types of secondary parts (Reflector for rear/clearance light, Fog light bracket, Oil filler pipe, …) x 50 part numbers in the range x 2 OE part numbers x 1 (commercial codifications, ranges, etc.) x 5 brands, we have: 8000 x 50 x 1.0 x 5 x (1.0 x 5) = 10,000,000 IAM equivalences and 8000 x 50 x 1.0 x 5 x 2 OEs = 4,000,000 OE equivalences
Even if we make a very low estimate, in total we would be talking about handling: 1,382,400,000 equivalences (1,184,400,000 IAM-IAM and 198,000,000 IAM-OE). Can anyone imagine what this volume of equivalences represents to store it, detect errors but, above all, perform continuous maintenance?
However, if we had a universal code, such as NEO code®, which relates all the part numbers on the market to each other using a main code, all these equivalence relationships would be simplified to only 32,600,000 equivalences, 42 times less than trying to define equivalences between all the part number on the market!
What we should ask ourselves is: Do we really want or will we be able to manage and minimize the potential errors in the millions of equivalences that must be generated to relate all the existing part numbers between all the products and brands on the market?
Well, if you feel that the path the industry is taking is not the right one, and you want a much simpler solution to analyse the aftermarket and/or manage your product data, please contact us and we will help you.
