Spare parts quotes drafted from a serial number or a photo
Parts inquiries arrive all day on an aftermarket desk, and they are the requests most closely tied to revenue. Customers send whatever they have, from a serial number to a phone photo of a worn part, and they want a price and a date the same day, often with a machine stopped. The agent does the identification and the lookups. Your parts specialist keeps the judgment calls and the final click.
Examples use invented names and figures.
What the agent does
- Step 1Reads the inquiry
From the parts@ mailbox or a portal form. It pulls the customer, the serial or model, any old part numbers, catalog page references and photos, and it notes when the customer says the machine is down.
- Step 2Identifies the part
It matches the serial to its as-built BOM and catalog position, then follows your supersession table to the current number. When the data allows more than one answer, it ranks the candidates with its reasons and sends the request to a specialist.
- Step 3Prices and screens
Price and availability come only from your ERP. The agent screens the parties against the restricted party lists and reads the export classification from your item master.
- Step 4Queues the quote for approval
Your specialist sees the request, the identified part, the price source and the screening result side by side and releases the quote in one click. Machine-down requests sit at the top of the queue.
Parts the data cannot identify with confidence go to a specialist, and every screening hit goes to trade compliance. Part numbers and delivery dates must come from approved records, and a missing or conflicting value blocks release. Prices below the floor your managers set go to a manager.
- Inquiries per week and minutes per inquiry, before and after
- Hours from inquiry to first quote, with machine-down requests counted separately
- Share of quotes released without edits
- Quote-to-order rate
- Requests routed to a person, with the reason
Questions about this agent
Can it read photos of worn parts?
It can compare a photo with your catalog images and drawings and rank the likely parts. Worn or painted-over parts lower the confidence, so a photo match always sits next to the serial lookup, and a specialist confirms anything below the threshold.
What if our supersession data is incomplete?
The agent records every number it cannot resolve and proposes the missing link for a specialist to approve. Scoping measures how many of your recent inquiries the current data can answer, so you know the routine share before the build.
Does it set prices on its own?
No. Prices come from your ERP, including contract prices and your discount rules. The agent applies the customer's existing price and flags anything that needs a manager, such as a discount below the floor.