The Auto Care Association announced that its ACES and PIES product-based data standards, widely adopted by suppliers and their distribution partners in North America, will be available in China. Suppliers in China can use Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard (ACES) and Product Information Exchange Standard (PIES) to provide detailed performance and physical attributes of automotive products to differentiate their products on features and value, not just price.
“Auto Parts application data is essential for every auto aftermarket distributor, but currently most distributors need to invest lots of money and resources to set up the data by themselves, and cannot exchange the data with other partners. We are expecting there will be a common standard for auto aftermarket data. The Auto Care Association’s PIES and ACES standard will provide tremendous benefit to our company’s development,” said JiaPei’s General Manager Qiu liQiang.
“ACES and PIES have long been the preferred standards for electronic data transfer in the North American auto care marketplace,” said Bill Hanvey, president and CEO, Auto Care Association. “The use of ACES and PIES in China serves as an acknowledgement of China’s increasing footprint in the global automotive aftermarket, as well as its rapidly growing domestic market for aftermarket parts and service.”
The Auto Care Association is working closely with local Chinese organizations and will provide training and seminars in order to support adoption throughout the industry.
ACES makes it possible, and more efficient, to compile an electronic catalog with quality, consistent content about thousands of product lines. Using ACES, suppliers can describe vehicle configurations with valid database values. Suppliers can define product terminology with a database of product names, all in a computer-readable format for the exchange of this information from supplier to receiver.
PIES defines the rules of managing elements of product information, product images and product attributes. PIES defines the format of the information and the valid values. With PIES, customers and those in the distribution chain will know what a product looks like, what it weighs, the size of the box and how many are packed inside, the length of the warranty, the country of origin, the performance attributes and more.
To learn more about the ACES and PIES standards, visit autocare.org/china or autocare.org/technology.
