Mercedes-Benz AG

A Clear Run for Spare Parts Information at Mercedes-Benz 

Legacy systems have had their day at Mercedes-Benz – to make the creation and publication of spare parts information more efficient, the automotive manufacturer turned to Quanos when redesigning its processes and systems, and has noticeably improved efficiency for more than 250,000 users.

Mercedes-Benz: from automotive pioneer to service trailblazer

Mercedes-Benz is not just one of the most well-known automotive companies in the world, it is also an automotive manufacturing pioneer: In 1886, Carl Benz filed a patent application for the first automobile. 40 years later Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. teamed up with Daimler-Benz AG, and Mercedes-Benz was born.

The company has always retained its inventive genius - as well as the spare parts information of the first model series. Now, with software solutions from Quanos, Mercedes-Benz AG has succeeded in transferring the parts information of 1936 from different legacy systems to a modern and networked IT environment.

The goal: a single source of spare parts information for all users worldwide

Everything is running smoothly for the automotive manufacturer which, in 2023, sold 2.49 million vehicles. True to the slogan “The best or nothing”, high demands are placed on service; the aftersales team wants to make the right spare parts information available at any time, for every vehicle regardless of who is looking for it, and whereabouts they are in the world.

For this to happen, service employees must create and publish spare parts information efficiently, find parts quickly, and be able to flexibly integrate the information into the Mercedes digital world. This is why, in 2014, the Group launched the “iParts” project. The goal was to develop a technology hub for parts information as a back-end system, which acts as a single source of information for all workshops worldwide.

The technological partner Mercedes-Benz AG chose was Quanos. With the support of the software experts, the automotive pioneers were able to say farewell to their legacy systems and establish a new and flexible platform for all spare parts processes.

A data hub for parts information: step by step

From kick-off to the final project roll-out took six years. This is because the switch from the previous systems for parts information to a new environment took place during ongoing operation. To ensure seamless migration, the project team led by project managers Jürgen Scharpf and Rüdiger Sell, as well as sub-project managers and product owners Tobias Nimz, Alexander Zent and Manuel Hauser, initially concentrated on the publication side.

The technical authors carried on working as before, while the existing data was gradually imported into the new spare parts platform, subjected to quality assurance, and published. In the course of more than 30 migrations, millions of data records were moved, comprising the manufacturer’s entire product range. They come from vintage cars dating back to 1936, right up to the latest model at the time – the fully electric EQS.

The old and new spare parts catalog systems ran in parallel until all the data streams were converted to the new spare parts platform. Then Mercedes-Benz developed the XENTRY spare parts portal front-end, which was rolled out in 2018 for around 160,000 users in workshops worldwide, and which today is supplied with data from the new spare parts platform via web services in real time.

The challenge for migration: the wide range of variants

The challenge in the migration process was to import data for each specific vehicle. No easy task, given the large number of variants a Mercedes driver has to choose from today. Due to the many equipment options, colors, country-specific versions and different construction statuses, there are more variants than there are atoms in the observable universe.

Working as a team, Quanos and Mercedes-Benz were able to overcome this challenge, and concentrate in the next step on the technical writing requirements, for which new functionalities were provided. After the pioneer phase with the new S-class, the functions were then transferred to other models.

89 years of spare parts documentation in one system

Mercedes-Benz used the same system for documenting spare parts information for almost 50 years. In 1990, the Group introduced an electronic parts catalog for publication in the workshops. The publication times for spare parts information in those days were between 4 and 8 weeks.
Today, the spare part information is published in real time, and is made available to different consumers via web services.

The major Mercedes-Benz project replaced a total of eight legacy applications. More than 150 authors across all divisions can now work with the new spare parts system, using WYSIWYG functions (What You See Is What You Get), creating 3D-data, filtering and automating information, or using artificial intelligence for authoring processes.

With support from Quanos, the prestige automobile marque completely reorganized the worldwide supply and publication of the spare parts systems, combining 89 years of spare parts documentation in a single system, and making this available everywhere – for independent workshops and multi-brand portals, as well as for insurance companies.

The new spare parts platform is the single source of truth. Users can easily search for spare parts by entering the license plate, for example, and seeing the right parts immediately. “Today, more than 250,000 retail users take advantage of Mercedes channels to search for parts”, says Manuel Hauser, Lead Business Architect for spare parts information at Mercedes-Benz, and calculates: “That makes 20 million inquiries a day.”

Overall, the spare parts platform has 50,000 digital spare parts catalogs, and data for two million parts. “Even so, with Quanos we still achieve a response time of just 70 to 90 milliseconds – which is less time than it takes to blink”, says Hauser.

Key lessons learned from the iParts project

“In 2020, we switched off the last legacy system, and we now have a solution fit for the future that can easily present all parts information worldwide”, reports Jürgen Scharpf with satisfaction.

Due to the volume of data and its complexity, the project lasted for six years, during which time his team and Quanos productively completed more than 2,000 sprint events in all. “Quanos deserves the highest degree of recognition and appreciation”, says Scharpf. “The quality never changes, whatever our project partner’s company name, because the people behind the project are always the same.”

In conclusion, he shares some of the key lessons learned, for companies facing similar challenges to Mercedes-Benz:

• Focus on the goals: Mercedes-Benz divided the project into phases, and completed each phase very thoroughly, and in the highest quality.
• Commitment: A project such as iParts represents a radical change. This can only be managed if everyone is behind the project at all times, and is flexible when something unexpected happens.
• Support: Project managers always backed up their peers, and by providing them with the right resources and information, enabled them to work well and have everything they needed at all times.

Ready for the future with Quanos

“The new spare parts platform provides the Mercedes-Benz team with a basis for further developments and improvements. The first new features, such as the automation of exploded drawings and visual navigation to the spare parts, have already been implemented via a representation of the vehicle. The conclusion of the iParts project marked the end of a unique time for us, but not the end of our unique collaboration with Quanos”, sums up Jürgen Scharpf.