Automatic stock replenishment programs can represent a significant portion of a dealership's parts investment. But the PartsEdge data shows why two numbers matter when evaluating those programs:
How much inventory is protected by the program?
And: How much of that inventory is actually productive?
Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
For the purposes of the PartsEdge webinar analysis, productive inventory was defined as active inventory with three or more sales during the previous 12 months.
PartsEdge then looked at manufacturer-controlled ASR inventory to determine both how much was productive and how much of the dealership's overall investment was controlled by the program.
The differences were significant.
BMW had the highest ASR productive percentage in the analysis at 78.4%.
But BMW's ASR inventory represented only approximately 12% of the dealership's overall inventory investment. According to Chuck, that indicated the program was primarily protecting higher-velocity parts.
Compare that with Hyundai.
The webinar showed 86.47% of Hyundai inventory was program-controlled, the highest percentage discussed in this comparison, while its productive percentage ranked seventh among the manufacturers being compared.
Chrysler presented another variation: 56.8% of its ASR inventory was productive, while approximately 70% of its overall inventory investment was ASR-controlled.
These aren't necessarily “good” or “bad” results. They're examples of how differently manufacturer programs can operate.
The analysis also found manufacturer-controlled parts with marginal demand.
For example, 31.3% of Mercedes' stock-protected parts in the dataset had two or fewer sales during the previous 12 months. The webinar also showed Chrysler with 21.5% of ASR-controlled parts classified as forced stock.
That's why understanding the makeup of your inventory matters.
A part can be protected by a manufacturer program and still have relatively little demand at your dealership.
Manufacturer programs operate differently, and even programs using the same third-party platform may have different rules, guarantees and settings based on the manufacturer.
The goal isn't simply to compare one OEM against another.
It's to understand what percentage of your investment is controlled, what percentage is productive and what happens to everything outside the program.
Watch the full PartsEdge webinar to see the complete manufacturer comparison and learn how the numbers were calculated. Register for the next webinar so you don’t miss a single webinar!