Autologic, NCR bring self-service to the car dealership

18 Nov 2008

DAYTON, Ohio â€” NCR Corporation and Toronto-based Autologic Innovations have partnered to offer the automotive dealership industry in Canada an innovative self-service solution to provide easier and faster tracking of vehicle inventory and free up more time for customer service.

The new self-service tool provides dealerships with on-demand vehicle location and status â€” whether for inventory management or for customer test driving â€” and helps them improve operational efficiency while simplifying the customer test-drive process.

Autologic Innovations is an independent software developer and integrator of turnkey, real-time vehicle inventory management solutions. The company's Track-A-Lot software application integrates RFID, Wi-Fi and other wired/wireless technology, and the Internet. The latest enhancement to its Track-A-Lot system leverages the NCR EasyPoint Advantage kiosk.

All vehicles on a dealership lot are equipped with semi-active RFID tags. Staffers then use the NCR kiosk to read, record and track the tags associated with each vehicle. This allows dealers to not only improve vehicle monitoring and inventory management, but also enhance their theft prevention processes and eliminate the need to have staff manually count vehicles located in on- and off-site lots.

When a customer wishes to take a test drive, the salesperson simply waves the vehicle key fob (which contains the vehicle information number) at an RFID reader on the NCR kiosk, and the information is recorded in the Track-A-Lot system. The employee then uses the kiosk touchscreen to input the customer's name and driver's license number to complete the transaction.

"Automating this process through self-service can help dealerships transform their business â€” improving staff efficiency and reducing paper as employees no longer need to make a hard copy record of each driver's license prior to the test drive," said Paul Gautier, national director of Retail Channels for NCR in Canada. "More importantly, employees spend less time searching for vehicles and more time with customers, which can ultimately help increase sales."