By Rainer Lenk, Head of Automotive Europe, proaxia

Our objective is to create a seamlessly integrated, best-in-class sales and aftersales DMS.

It should be a single, end-to-end system, in which the customer and vehicle details are entered once only, and it should facilitate the innovative benefits of an end-to-end solution while removing the functional silos within a retail operation. It should mirror or lead effective and efficient workflows and processes and enable staff to enhance customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Our next release, proaxia VSS 4.0 (Q2 2023), comprises role-based user interfaces and the option for mobile service management, as well as rental management. proaxia VSS 4.0 will establish SAP Industry Cloud integration.

User-friendly, role-based apps for workshop management
based on SAP Fiori®

Following on the proaxia VSS Workshop Planner, Online Appointment Scheduling and Mobile Service Advisor, we have now developed the proaxia VSS Technician App and the proaxia VSS Communication Framework.

These are lean, role-based apps, which are optimized for specific workflows and help to simplify, automate and industrialize the workshop. They support the respective roles, such as technicians and service advisors, with exactly the information and functions they need for each particular stage of their task.

Further apps are planned.

proaxia VSS Technician App

This app integrates the technicians’ tasks fully into the end-to-end process and represents another step toward the paperless workshop. The app comprises functions e.g. for time clocking, order supplementing and notifications.

It facilitates

• seamless collaboration between service advisors, workshop controllers, technicians and parts clerks, and
• a transparent workshop process.

proaxia VSS Communication Framework 

The standard workshop processes are consistent and optimized. However there are still events that require ad hoc clarification and exceptions that have to be dealt with. These require immediate communication between technicians, service advisors and parts clerks, or between aftersales and customers. proaxia VSS Communication Framework, an intelligent messenger for aftersales, manages this spontaneous, yet nevertheless structured communication.

Some examples of use cases for event-driven communication:

Use case: job approval by customer

While performing the service, the technician notices that the brake pads also need to be replaced. He takes a photo or video and explains his assessment in a voice message. He then adds a new job to the order and enters all the information.

This event automatically causes a message to be sent to the parts department. The parts clerk adds the required parts and labor value to the job and calculates the price. When the estimate is ready, an email or text message with all the information is automatically sent to the customer. With a click of a button, the customer can determine whether the repair should be carried out now or at the next appointment. If the customer clicks “yes”, the job is released in the system, the parts clerk is triggered to pick the parts and the technician can do the job right away.

Use case: action by call

• The technician has finished the service and a message is sent to the washer that the car can be picked up and prepared for delivery to the customer.
• The technician needs an extra part. He can send a voice message to the parts clerk.

proaxia VSS Mobile Service – Integration of SAP FSM

proaxia VSS Mobile Service now leverages the strengths of proaxia VSS and SAP Field Service Management to support service in the field. The integration of SAP FSM is particularly beneficial to workshops for heavy machinery, agricultural machinery and industrial trucks.

Service orders can now be created in proaxia VSS and transferred to SAP FSM, where the orders are assigned to the technicians. While completing the order in the field, the technician can directly edit the order, capture the required working hours, parts, travel times and expenses and have the customer sign the confirmation. The process is then passed back to proaxia VSS, where the costs are posted and the order is settled.

• Service order back-office processing in proaxia VSS
• Technician scheduling in SAP FSM
• Service processing on mobile devices under SAP FSM
• Invoicing with splitting to multiple bill-to-parties in proaxia VSS

Mobile Service Advisor – extension for android devices

Due to a technical redesign, the proaxia VSS Mobile Service Advisor is now platform-independent and can be used on iOS as well as on Android devices.

proaxia VSS Rental – supporting rental of moving assets

proaxia VSS Rental is a solution for the end-to-end management of rental transactions – with integrated SAP S/4HANA functionalities (master data, procurement, sales, finance, controlling). proaxia VSS Rental orchestrates the management of contracts, delivery, billing etc. as well as the management of the rental fleet stock.

The corresponding SAP business functionalities for managing the rental process and the rental fleet are accessible via role-specific user interfaces. The process runs within SAP standard objects (contract, equipment, delivery, invoice etc.).

proaxia VSS Rental Contract Management

• Cockpit with role-based interfaces for creating new rental contracts and searching and editing existing rental contracts

• Efficient object search with detailed filters (object, size, configuration) to identify the right device and accessories (excavator, boom etc.)
• Easily create new contract
• Efficient contract search
• Clear display of contractual information for the device (e.g. availability)
• Easily change runtimes and add accessories
• Tightly integrated with service processes

proaxia Rental Fleet Management 

• Cockpit for managing the entire rental fleet, including stock transfers and asset depreciation (FI-AA) and logistics

• Clear and detailed overview of the rental fleet and planning parameters
• Initiate multiple SAP transactions for multiple objects at the same time with just a few clicks
• Transfer objects from working capital to fixed assets,
• Transfer objects from standard plant to rental plant (logistics)
• Initiate storage location movements and plant-to-plant movements

Digital twin in the cloud – integration with SAP Digital Vehicle Hub

The SAP Digital Vehicle Hub (DVH) application provides a central repository to manage vehicle-related, master transactional and usage data and to create a comprehensive digital twin of a vehicle.

With the seamless integration of proaxia VSS and SAP Digital Vehicle Hub, retailers seamlessly connect to the OEM/importer/distributor processes and the shared digital twin information. The access to this shared vehicle data facilitates collaborative business processes supported by innovative cloud applications.

• Central vehicle repository for vehicle master and transaction data
• Service history is kept up to date in SAP DVH by real-time process updates from the proaxia VSS Service process engine
• Benefit from IoT data for new business models
• Publish data to selected audience
• Gain operational insights
• Reduce vehicle lifecycle costs while simultaneously enhancing lifecycle duration and minimizing downtimes
• Improve collaboration among automotive industry players
• Reduce master data maintenance effort while simultaneously improving data quality even further
• Use real-time data for ongoing analysis, faster response to customer demand, proactive and predictive maintenance, as well as for condition and environmental modeling

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