Multiple-platform estimating and automatic quoting for network-based parts resale

• US 7,835,945 B2
• Filed: 11/02/2004
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Claims Services Group LLC (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: PS Holdings LLC (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Davis, Deathe, Scruton, Jay F., Davis, Orson P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Airapetian; Mila
• Application Number:
  US10/979,777
• Publication Number:
  US 20050144095A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,205 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/27
• US Class Current: 705/26.8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

A part location system is described that utilizes computer-based techniques for bringing together repair facilities and suppliers to increase the efficiency of locating recycled, used or aftermarket parts using a computer network, such as the Internet. The part location system receives an electronic estimate from one of the repair facilities, parses the estimate to extract pertinent information regarding parts needed in the repair process, and automatically generates an RFQ using the pertinent information extracted from the estimate. The part location system communicates the RFQ to a number of suppliers. The part location system electronically receives quotes from the suppliers and presents the quotes to the repair facility, which determines whether to accept any of the quotes. The part location system maintains an audit log, which may be used to track the effort used to obtain recycled or aftermarket products.

Claims

1. A method for locating parts for repairing an automobile comprising:

receiving, with an online part location system, an electronic estimate from a repair facility over a communication network, wherein the electronic estimate is an electronic copy of an estimate provided to an owner of an automobile that is in the repair facility for repair;

parsing the estimate with the online part location system to extract information that identifies a year and model of the automobile and a list of parts needed by the repair facility to repair the automobile of the owner;

automatically generating a request for quote (RFQ) with the online part location system using the information extracted from the estimate; and

electronically sending the RFQ from the online part location system to suppliers via the communication network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising remotely presenting a user interface at the repair facility through which the repair facility submits the estimate.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the user interface presented to the user comprises a window for inputting the estimate, and further comprising receiving the electronic copy of the estimate in the window.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the estimate from the repair facility comprises receiving an electronic attachment of the estimate from the repair facility.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the estimate from the repair facility comprises extracting an Estimating Management Standard (EMS) file from an estimating platform used by the repair facility.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the estimate further comprises parsing the estimate to extract vehicle information in addition to the list of parts.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with the part location system, automatically filtering information of a personal nature of the owner from the estimate when generating the RFQ such that no private information about the owner is included in the RFQ.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering from the list of parts those parts identified to be purchased new.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the part location system automatically identifying combinations of parts from the list of parts from which an aggregate part can be formed; and

the part location system including the aggregate part in the RFQ instead of the combination of parts extracted from the estimate.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an image of a part from the repair facility over the communication network; and

the part location system embedding the image in the RFQ.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the part location system selecting a subset of suppliers to which to send the RFQ; and

sending the RFQ from the part location system to the selected subset of suppliers.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting the subset of suppliers to which to send the RFQ comprises the part location system selecting suppliers identified by the repair facility.

13. The method of claim 11,

wherein parsing the estimate with the online part location system to extract information comprises the online part location system parsing the estimate to extract claim information representing an insurance claim and identifying an insurance company for the owner of the car that is associated with the repair;

wherein selecting suppliers to which to send the RFQ comprises the online part location system selecting suppliers identified by the insurance company as approved suppliers with which the insurance companies does business.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting suppliers to which to send the RFQ comprises the online part location system storing and applying a set of profiles to select the suppliers to which to send the RFQ based on one of a geographic location and a type of part carried by the suppliers.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, with the online part location system, an electronic quote from at least one of the suppliers for one or more parts identified in the RFQ; and

presenting, with the online part location system, the quote to the repair facility associated with the RFQ.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein receiving a quote from one of the suppliers comprises receiving a quote directly from an employee of one of the suppliers.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein receiving a quote form one of the suppliers comprises:

the online part location system electronically accessing an inventory management system associated with one of the suppliers; and

the online part location system electronically identifying a current quote price from the inventory management system for one or more parts identified in the RFQ.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving quotes from a plurality of suppliers;

arranging the quotes from the suppliers according to part; and

presenting the quotes to the repair facility.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving quotes from a plurality of suppliers;

arranging the quotes from the suppliers according to suppliers; and

presenting the quotes to the repair facility.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility would like to accept the quote;

automatically generating a purchase order for the part associated with the accepted quote; and

sending the purchase order to the one of the suppliers that submitted the quote.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

receiving quotes for multiple parts from one of the suppliers;

receiving input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility accepts more than one of the quotes from the one of the suppliers; and

automatically generating a purchase order for all the parts associated with the accepted quotes from the one of the suppliers.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising maintaining an audit log that tracks the generated RFQ, the resulting quotes, and the quotes accepted by the repair facility.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising providing a summary of the audit log to an auditor.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

receiving audit criteria from an auditor;

retrieving information from the audit log based on the audit criteria; and

presenting the auditor with the information retrieved from the audit log.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the audit criteria includes at least one of a city, shop name, parts manager, date, and time.

26. The method of claim 22, further comprising presenting the auditor with information regarding RFQs currently open.

96. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a plurality of profiles for a plurality of different repair facilities, where each of the profiles defines a virtual marketplace by identifies a set of the suppliers with which the respective repair facility will conduct business;

selecting one of the profiles based on the repair facility from which the estimate was received;

selecting a subset of suppliers to which to send the RFQ based on the selected profile; and

sending the RFQ from the part location system to the selected subset of suppliers.

97. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically filtering from the list of parts, with the part location system, those parts identified by the part location system as parts not carried by recyclers as road hazard parts including brakes.

98. The method of claim 1, further comprising remotely presenting a user interface at the repair facility through which the repair facility submits the electronic estimate,

wherein the user interface includes an input option configured to allow the user to identify an estimate platform by which the submitted estimate was electronically created,

wherein the input option is configured to allow the user to select between a plurality of different electronic estimate platforms supported by the part location system, and

wherein parsing the estimate comprises extracting the information from the estimate in accordance with a format determined from the electronic estimate platform identified by the user as used to create the estimate being submitted.

27. A device comprising:

a communication interface to couple the device to a computer network; and

a control unit comprising;

a processor;

a parsing engine, executing on the processor, that receives an estimate from a remote repair facility over the computer network and parses the estimate to extract information that identifies a list of parts needed by the remote repair facility, wherein the electronic estimate is an electronic copy of an estimate provided to an owner of an automobile that is in the repair facility for repair; and

a request for quote (RFQ) manager, executing on the processor, that automatically generates an electronic RFQ using the information extracted from the estimate and sends the RFQ to suppliers via the computer network.

28. The device of claim 27, wherein the control unit further comprises a user interface module to present a user interface to the remote repair facility to allow the remote repair facility to input the estimate.

29. The device of claim 28, wherein the remote repair facility inputs a copy of the estimate in a window of the user interface.

30. The device of claim 28, wherein the parsing engine receives an electronic attachment of the estimate from the remote repair facility via the user interface.

31. The device of claim 27, wherein the parsing engine receives an Estimating Management Standard (EMS) file from an estimating platform used by the repair facility.

32. The device of claim 27, wherein the parsing engine parses the estimate to extract vehicle information in addition to the list of parts.

33. The device of claim 27, wherein the parsing engine filters information of a personal nature from the estimate.

34. The device of claim 27, wherein the parsing engine filters from the list of parts those parts identified to be purchased new.

35. The device of claim 27, wherein the parsing engine identifies combinations of parts from the list of parts that form an aggregate part.

36. The device of claim 27, wherein the RFQ management module selects a subset of suppliers to which to send the RFQ and sends the RFQ to the selected subset of suppliers.

37. The device of claim 36, wherein the RFQ management module selects suppliers identified by the repair facility.

38. The device of claim 36, wherein the RFQ management module selects suppliers identified by an insurance company.

39. The device of claim 36, wherein the RFQ management module selects suppliers based on one of a geographic location and a type of part carried by the suppliers.

40. The device of claim 27, wherein the RFQ management module receives a quote from at least one of the suppliers for one or more parts identified in the RFQ and presents the quote to the repair facility associated with the RFQ.

41. The device of claim 40, wherein the RFQ management module receives the quote directly from an employee of one of the suppliers.

42. The device of claim 40, wherein the RFQ management module accesses an inventory associated with one of the suppliers and identifies a quote price from the inventory.

43. The device of claim 40, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from a first supplier, and wherein the RFQ management module receives quotes from multiples suppliers, arranges the quotes from the suppliers according to part and presents the quotes to the repair facility.

44. The device of claim 40, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from a first supplier, and wherein the RFQ management module receives quotes from multiple other suppliers, arranges the quotes from the suppliers according to suppliers and presents the quotes to the repair facility.

45. The device of claim 40, wherein the RFQ management module receives input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility would like to accept the quote, automatically generates a purchase order for the part corresponding to the accepted quote and sends the purchase order to the one of the suppliers that submitted the quote.

46. The device of claim 45, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from a supplier, and further wherein the RFQ management module receives a second quote from the supplier, receives input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility accepts both the quotes from the supplier, and automatically generates a purchase order for all the parts associated with the accepted quotes from the supplier.

47. The device of claim 45, wherein the control unit maintains an audit log that tracks the generated RFQ, the resulting quotes, and the quotes accepted by the repair facility.

48. The device of claim 47, wherein the control unit provides a summary of the audit log to an auditor.

49. The device of claim 47, wherein the control unit receives audit criteria from an auditor, retrieves information from the audit log based on the audit criteria and presents the auditor with the information retrieved from the audit log.

50. The device of claim 49, wherein the audit criteria includes at least one of a city, shop name, parts manager, date, and time.

51. A system comprising:

a repair facility coupled to a computer network;

a plurality of supplier computing systems coupled to the computer network; and

a part location device coupled to the computer network, wherein the part location device comprises a control unit that comprises;

a parsing engine that receives an estimate from a remote repair facility over the computer network and parses the estimate to extract information that identifies a list of parts needed by the remote repair facility, and

a request for quote (RFQ) management module executed by the control unit to automatically generate an RFQ using the information extracted from the estimate and sends the RFQ to the supplier computing systems via the computer network.

52. The system of claim 51, wherein the control unit further comprises a user interface module to present a user interface to the repair facility to allow the repair facility to input the estimate.

53. The system of claim 52, wherein the repair facility inputs a copy of the estimate in a window of the user interface.

54. The system of claim 52, wherein the parsing engine receives an electronic attachment of the estimate from the repair facility via the user interface.

55. The system of claim 51, wherein the parsing engine receives an Estimating Management Standard (EMS) file from an estimating platform used by the repair facility.

56. The system of claim 51, wherein the parsing engine parses the estimate to extract vehicle information in addition to the list of parts.

57. The system of claim 51, wherein the parsing engine filters information of a personal nature from the estimate.

58. The system of claim 51, wherein the parsing engine filters from the list of parts those parts identified to be purchased new.

59. The system of claim 51, wherein the parsing engine identifies combinations of parts from the list of parts that form an aggregate part.

60. The system of claim 51, wherein the RFQ management module selects a subset of the supplier computing systems to which to send the RFQ and sends the RFQ to the selected subset of supplier computing systems.

61. The system of claim 60, wherein the RFQ management module selects the subset of supplier computing systems that are associated with suppliers identified by one of the repair facility and an insurance company.

62. The system of claim 60, wherein the RFQ management module selects the subset of supplier computing systems based on one of a geographic location and a type of part carried by each of the suppliers.

63. The system of claim 51, wherein the RFQ management module receives a quote from at least one of the supplier computing systems for one or more parts identified in the RFQ and presents the quote to the repair facility associated with the RFQ.

64. The system of claim 63, wherein the RFQ management module receives the quote directly from an employee of one of the suppliers by interaction with a corresponding one of the supplier computing systems.

65. The system of claim 63, wherein the RFQ management module accesses an inventory associated with one of the supplier computing systems and identifies a quote price from the inventory.

66. The system of claim 63, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from a first one of the supplier computing systems, and wherein the RFQ management module receives quotes from multiple other supplier computing systems, arranges the quotes from the supplier computing systems according to part and presents the quotes to the repair facility.

67. The system of claim 63, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from a first one of the supplier computing systems, and wherein the RFQ management module receives quotes from multiple other supplier computing systems, arranges the quotes from the supplier computing systems according to suppliers and presents the quotes to the repair facility.

68. The system of claim 63, wherein the RFQ management module receives input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility would like to accept the quote, automatically generates a purchase order for the part associated with the accepted quote and sends the purchase order to the one of the supplier computing systems that submitted the quote.

69. The system of claim 68, wherein the quote comprises a first quote from the supplier computing system, and further wherein the RFQ management module receives a second quote from the supplier computing system, receives input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility accepts both the quotes from the supplier computing system, and automatically generates a purchase order for all the parts associated with the accepted quotes from the supplier computing system.

70. The system of claim 68, wherein the control unit maintains an audit log that tracks the generated RFQ, the resulting quotes, and the quotes accepted by the repair facility.

71. The system of claim 70, wherein the control unit provides a summary of the audit log to an auditor.

72. The system of claim 70, wherein the control unit receives audit criteria from an auditor, retrieves information from the audit log based on the audit criteria and presents the auditor with the information retrieved from the audit log.

73. The system of claim 72, wherein the audit criteria includes at least one of a city, shop name, parts manager, date, and time.

74. The system of claim 51, wherein the computer network comprises at least one of a Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), and Wireless LAN.

75. The system of claim 51, wherein the suppliers comprise at least one or recyclers, used part dealers, and aftermarket vendors.

76. The system of claim 51, wherein the repair facility comprises a first repair facility, and further comprising a second repair facility.

77. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, comprising instructions that cause a programmable processor to:

receive an estimate from a repair facility over a communication network;

parse the estimate to extract information that identifies a list of parts needed by the repair facility;

automatically generate a request for quote (REQ) using the information extracted from the estimate; and

send the RFQ to suppliers via the communication network.

78. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, wherein instructions to cause the processor to parse the estimate include instruction to parse to extract vehicle information in addition to the list of parts.

79. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to filter information of a personal nature from the estimate.

80. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to filter from the list of parts those parts identified to be purchased new.

81. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to

identify combinations of parts from the list of parts that form an aggregate part;

and

include the aggregate part in the RFQ.

82. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

select a subset of suppliers to which to send the RFQ; and

send the RFQ to the selected subset of suppliers.

83. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 82, wherein instructions to cause the processor to select the subset of suppliers include instruction to select suppliers identified by one of the repair facility and an insurance company.

84. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 82, wherein instructions to cause the processor to select the subset of suppliers include instruction to select suppliers based on one of a geographic location and a type of part carried by the suppliers.

85. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 77, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

receive a quote from at least one of the suppliers for one or more parts identified in the RFQ; and

present the quote to the repair facility associated with the RFQ.

86. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 85, wherein instructions to cause the processor to receive a quote from one of the suppliers include instruction to receive a quote directly from an employee of one of the suppliers.

87. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 85, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to;

receive quotes from a plurality of suppliers;

arrange the quotes from the suppliers according to one of part and supplier; and

present the quotes to the repair facility.

88. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 85, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

receive input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility would like to accept the quote;

automatically generate a purchase order for the part associated with the accepted quote; and

send the purchase order to the one of the suppliers that submitted the quote.

89. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 88, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

receive quotes for multiple parts from one of the suppliers;

receive input from the repair facility indicating that the repair facility accepts more than one of the quotes from the one of the suppliers; and

automatically generate a purchase order for all the parts associated with the accepted quotes from the one of the suppliers.

90. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 88, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to maintain an audit log that tracks the generated RFQ, the resulting quotes, and the quotes accepted by the repair facility.

91. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 90, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to provide a summary of the audit log to an auditor.

92. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 90, further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

receiving audit criteria from an auditor;

retrieving information from the audit log based on the audit criteria; and

presenting the auditor with the information retrieved from the audit log.

93. A method comprising:

receiving, with an online part location system, an estimate from a repair facility;

parsing the estimate with the online part location system to extract information that identifies a list of parts needed by the repair facility;

filtering, with the online part location system, at least a portion of the parts that do not meet a set of rules provided by an insurance company; and

automatically generating a request for quote (RFQ) with the online part location system using the information extracted from the estimate.

94. The method of claim 93, wherein filtering the parts that do not meet a set of rules provided by the insurance company comprises filtering the parts that the insurance company requires to be purchased new.

95. A method comprising:

receiving, with the online part location system, an estimate from a repair facility;

parsing the estimate to extract information that identifies a list of parts needed by the repair facility;

identifying, with the online part location system, combinations of parts from the list of parts that form an aggregate part; and

automatically generating a request for quote (RFQ) with the online part location system using the information extracted from the estimate and the identified aggregate parts.