Cloud-Based Parts Catalog Fuels Tech-Driven Car-Buying Revolution
Named to the 2021 Fortune 500 list, and one of the fastest-growing retail companies ever, Carvana is best known for its multi-story car vending machines. Using Carvana, customers can choose from tens of thousands of vehicles, get financing, trade-in, and complete a purchase entirely online with the convenience of home delivery or local pick up in over 300 U.S. markets.
“We think of ourselves as a technology company first, and we happen to sell cars,” said Tim Moore, Sr. Director, Vehicle Reconditioning Technology at Carvana. “We approach every single problem with that attitude. We're laser-focused on using machine learning, AI, and other advanced technologies to make our associates’ jobs easier to create a superior customer experience.”
Moore’s team is responsible for the myriad systems and technologies used for receiving, inspecting, fixing, cleaning and photographing vehicles to be listed for sale on Carvana’s website. He highlighted, “We have extremely stringent quality standards for our reconditioning processes because the market has traditionally been plagued with poor quality and subpar practices. That’s a reputation we have been able to, and continue to transform, because we go above and beyond to ensure that the customer is happy. That’s how we are changing the way people buy vehicles.”
To streamline operations and improve efficiency, Carvana turned to Epicor Catalog, the largest automotive aftermarket parts database, with access to more than 17 million SKUs from over 9,500 manufacturers’ product lines, covering more than 1.4 billion vehicle applications.
The powerful yet easy-to-use cloud-based tool helps to provide, in Moore’s words, “the right data at the right time.”
Carvana’s AI/ML group developed a large language model (LLM) that aggregates data from all key subsystems and makes it available to employees from engineering to customer service. Epicor Catalog is integrated with the LLM and supplies the parts data, enabling technicians to identify the right item faster.
Another Carvana tool facilitates decisions on product selection, ETA, costs, and workflow management. Also integrated with Epicor Catalog, this tool is constantly learning and getting better over time. These tools serve up installation content, and each tech is equipped with a tablet that they clip to the dashboard or windshield of the vehicle they are working on. How-to videos are automatically sent directly to the technician along with the part.
“Techs work on thousands of cars a week, and if they don’t have to get up and log in to a desktop, it makes their lives easier,” Moore shared.
Epicor Catalog also has helped to enable Carvana to streamline the process of preparing a car for sale.
Moore said, “We order many parts every month. The process of identifying the part, selecting the quantity, filling out and submitting a purchase request, receiving the part, and then paying the invoice can be time intensive.”
Epicor Catalog helped to deliver a significant improvement in time required for parts sourcing, allowing us to optimize our resources.
Carvana took a hard look at the parts-buying process, determined to improve efficiency and make the experience better for employees as well as for customers. Epicor Catalog automated the parts sourcing process. “Now there is no labor involved because Epicor tells us the best component, at the best price, for each vehicle,” Moore explained. The process is easier for Carvana’s employees. With just one click, the requisition is created, and the supplier identified, while price, quantity, and ETA are all automatically entered into Carvana’s back-end procurement system.
Moore stated, “Epicor Catalog supported a significant improvement in time required for parts sourcing, allowing us to optimize our resources.”
Moore described, “Using Epicor to identify the right part, get it on the next delivery from the supplier and quickly install it helps us to fulfill our mission and drive our customers happy.”
Suppliers are also energized, as technology helped to enable Carvana to request more parts per delivery. Moore added, “We have an entire group focused on sustainability initiatives because, as you can imagine, if you save a few dollars on every vehicle and sell hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year, it adds up fast.”
Finally, Moore recalled that within two weeks of Epicor Catalog being released, Carvana had a 98% adoption rate, proof that employees find the solution both user-friendly and valuable.
Moore said the impact of Carvana’s partnership with Epicor is just beginning, and he is looking into adding additional Epicor modules, starting with Smart Inspection 2.0.
Moore recalled, “We did a lot of shopping around for the right company that had the right data. We’ve been successful with Epicor because they are willing to truly collaborate with us to build unique technologies that have never been used before.”
“We constantly use metrics to inform our decisions, and having that extra level of data from Epicor helps us make informed, real-time, educated decisions in an automated way,” he continued.
