Parts Management in the 21st Century

On this webinar, our CEO Tyler Robertson is joined by Nate Knorr, one of our senior parts experts and Product Manager for our parts software here at Diesel Laptops.

Miss the live webinar? No problem! Click below to view the replay!

Nate will be covering TruckPartsCross.com, our free tool that allows you to cross-reference any truck part to find OEM alternatives, more cost-effective solutions, or simply search your inventory for compatible parts.

Nate will also talk about our newest parts innovation, TruckPartsLookup.com, which allows you to find and cross-reference truck parts without a VIN or serial number. Be sure to click the links above and register your free account to see for yourself how powerful these tools are.

Also joining us on this webinar - Jamie Irvine, our sales manager for our truck platforms and also a seasoned heavy-duty industry veteran.


Jamie will talk about how all of our tools come together to make parts management nightmares a thing of the past. From mass cross-referencing to finding hidden savings in your business, to winning parts bids and more.

Let's dive right in! 

Now, in our survey, 63% of you said time wasted when sourcing parts is the biggest challenge that affects your business. 

Let's look at the main ways to source truck parts today: 

You can take your VIN or your serial number, call a dealer and give them the VIN, and try to get the part you need. There are several problems with this.

• Sometimes the part number is incomplete or the part number has changed, so it's very difficult to cross.

• It's not the price point you want to pay - you may not want to buy an OEM part or one of their aftermarket parts they have in stock.

• Knowledgeable parts people on the counter - you hope when you phone in you're gonna get that person, but they're always overworked and usually not available. 

• Parts aren't necessarily available all the time.

• When you do have to phone in, it can take 15+ minutes just get a hold of someone.

Your only other option is to try and find these parts on your own using the thousands of aftermarket websites. These can have conflicting information, inaccurate pictures, and you're really not 100% sure you're getting the right part the first time.

The real problem here is that downtime is a serious issue - the longer it takes to source your part, the more money gets eaten up in the process. So you really want to be able to get the right part, the right time, for the right price.

That's what we're here to solve for you today. Diesel Laptops has three platforms to share with you:

• Truck Parts Cross

• Truck Parts Lookup

• Truck Parts Premium

Truck Parts Cross

First up is Truck Parts Cross, and how this 100% free platform can save you a ton of time and money when sourcing your truck parts.

Truck Parts Cross is the most advanced parts cross tool on the market today. Not only because of the data we have in our database, but because of our advanced features as well.

Favorites, VMRS codes, images, buy links, and so much more has gone into the development of this software tool. You can even take Truck Parts Cross on the road with you, we've got mobile apps for iOS, Android, and desktop versions as well so you can access all your parts crosses no matter what.

And what makes Truck Parts Cross truly special is more what it's not trying to do - we're not trying to sell you any specific parts, we're not leaving out parts, and the platform is 100% free for every user. Once you sign up for an account, you can do unlimited parts crosses for life, plus access all updates, all mobile versions - the whole 9 yards - absolutely free.

One thing you'll notice during this demo - we have a very clean database. We strip out all the prefixes and suffixes so each part is in our database only ONE time.

The other is direct and indirect crosses. Direct crosses - the world knows about. These come from manufacturers, catalogs, etc.

Indirect crosses are what's really neat. Say you have:

• OEM part A123
• Aftermarket Manufacturer X crosses to A123
• Aftermarket Manufacturer Z also crosses to A123
• Here's the problem - nobody knows that X and Z also cross!

Why? Nobody has ever built that network or that web that's able to make those connections before. When we first turned this on, we got over 30 million additional cross-references that nobody knows exist!

We've gone through and validated over 15 million of those crosses, with more being validated all the time.

Another cool thing about Truck Parts Cross is if you don't get a cross for your part, our team is notified so we can validate and add crosses - so keep checking back because our platform is constantly being updated.

Truck Parts Lookup - No VIN, No Problem!

As if a huge cross-database wasn't enough - we're changing the game again, allowing you to find and cross those parts even without a serial or VIN. 

What we found is there's a lot of commonality between trucks. Around 70% of the parts on your T680 are the same as any other T680 on the road - and from there, we only need to identify the other 30%. 

For Truck Parts Lookup, we're focused on the high failure parts on trucks, and we've combined technologies to make it easy to not only find your part but also cross-reference it as well.

You can see from our coverage that we've got a wide range of information in our database, from complete trucks like the Kenworth T680 to suspensions, transmissions, and a whole lot more. 

We push updates to this site daily, so make sure you keep checking back! 

For our demo today we're using an Eaton transmission - we've got a ton of Eaton data in our database - we're going to look at a RoadRanger valve.

The exploded view gives you all the details to get the correct parts you need.

Now once you've found your part and located it in the parts list table, simply click on it and you'll be able to cross that part inside our Truck Parts Cross database, without ever having to leave the site! 

Truck Parts Premium

Truck Parts Premium is Our On-Demand Software Suite to Manage Inventory, Increase Margins, and Operate More Efficiently.

Today we're going to cover the features of Truck Parts Premium and how they can help your business. TPP, after all, isn't just one piece of software, it's several different platforms that allow you to do several advanced tasks in a fraction of the time as traditional methods.

Let's take a look at the poll: 

Since 84% of our viewers wanted to know how to cross thousands of parts at one time, we'll start with our Mass Cross tool. 

Mass Cross

When we have a customer that has a mixed group of equipment, trucks (on, off-highway, etc) and they put their parts purchases out to bid, they'll provide a list of a thousand part numbers you need to quote on.

So what happens?

Some poor parts person spends the next 8-16 hours trying to manually cross one part at a time to try and build that quote. That's up to 2 working days when I'm sure that person's time could be better spent. 

Luckily for you, that's a thing of the past as of today!

Using our Mass Cross tool, you can take an excel spreadsheet of all those part numbers from your customer's fleet and you have the description and you put it in truck parts premium, there's an opportunity to cross all those part numbers extremely quickly with this tool. All you do is upload that file into our program - it's going to auto-populate all of the crosses that are available based on that data.

Sometimes part numbers aren't very specific, but our system can match those because we have a good description, and when you start typing the part number, you can quickly grab the matching description.

Once we've done that, we've taken 8-16 hours of work and brought it down to just a few minutes. From there, our system is generating the cross report, and you'll get an email once the report clears through our servers.

You'll end up with a spreadsheet that has your part numbers, your description, direct crosses with descriptions, and also additional indirect crosses as we discussed earlier, which gives you a better value add for your customers - being able to show them crossing parts they may have been totally unaware of!

That's the real power of the Mass Cross tool - it's going to save you so much time, plus give you the ability to go back to your customers and add value based on these detailed reports. 

Manufacture Comparison

Let's say this same customer has his same mixed fleet of Mack, Volvo, Kenworth, etc. - you want to show him what inventory you need to supply the fleet so you can service his fleet most effectively and eliminate downtime.

When you put two manufacturers into the advanced manufacturer compare tool, you'll get back a report with all the part numbers in our system that are identical between the manufacturers you chose.

As you'll see, you're now able to tell your customers what parts are identical, saving them money, but you're also giving them the opportunity to choose the most cost-effective solution and reduce their inventory. Now your customer knows when they need to go to the dealer and when they can stock that item in-house.

Inventory Analysis

This is our most powerful tool, allowing you to reduce inventory and increase margins without sacrificing sales or downtime (and without any extra work on your end!). We start with an export of your inventory, including:

• Part Number
• Part Description
• Manufacturer
• Your cost (optional)

We take this spreadsheet and go through the same process as before - making sure the data is all synched. You'll notice some names are slightly different, so just make sure your parts match the parts in our database.

Once you submit the data, you'll get a file back that identifies every place where we have duplicate inventory.

One of the things you can do is not only reduce inventory but also identify opportunities for increased margins. For example, if you're selling two identical parts - one for $1.35 and one for $1.45 - you know the part sells at $1.45, and now you can raise the price of the identical part by 10 cents - making more money for no additional work.

On average, we're seeing 5-10% of inventory turns into frozen capital. And a further 2% average on margin opportunities. When you add all that up, you can put significant cash back into the business, when you're talking about a typical parts room with $1MM+ in inventory.

VMRS Codes

VMRS works in much the same way as our other premium parts tools. Upload your spreadsheet and receive a report with coded VMRS information inside. This is especially handy if you're working with a fleet that requires VMRS codes - simply generate a report and you're good to go!

Another great benefit of running these VMRS reports is that you can finally standardize your VMRS codes across your client's fleet. That means more accurate failure reports, better buying decisions, and most of all, saved time and money. 

Don't forget, there's much more to come!

Diesel Laptops is always researching new and innovative ways to bring our parts database to new uses. We're currently building a tool that will allow you to search for an aftermarket part, and pull up a list of dealerships in the area that carry that part or service the trucks that need that part. And that's just one example!

Until then, stay safe out there, and keep on trucking!

PS. Don't forget to redeem your access to the Diesel Laptops apps and software!

• Truck Fault Codes
  • Enter code "WEBMAR" for one year free (expires March 31st)
• Truck Labor Times
  • Enter code "WEBMAR" for one year free (expires March 31st)
• DieselVIN
  • Decode your VIN and get vehicle information for free!
• Truck Parts Cross
  • Cross-reference millions of parts for free
  • Mobile Apps on iOS and Android

• Truck Parts Lookup
  • Allows you to look up parts without a VIN or serial number
• Truck Parts Premium
  • Access our advanced tools like Inventory Analysis, Mass Cross, Mass VMRS, and more. 

Special offer only for webinar attendees - If you act now and purchase a full year of Truck Parts Premium, we'll throw in months 11 and 12 as our gift to you. To schedule your Truck Parts Premium demo, click here to fill out your information and we'll reach out ASAP. Thank you!