OMG, world leader in the production of cylinder heads and engine blocks for the automotive industry, presents its replacement parts for steering and suspension in the TecDoc Catalogue to expand its business in the aftermarket. TecAlliance provided start-up assistance with its OE Data Service: For optimum visibility in the catalogue, OMG’s OE numbers and article data were adapted and correctly linked according to the TecDoc standard. Best conditions for a successful business development in the international IAM!
The Italian group OMG was established in 1949 as a small production specialised in designing and manufacturing accessories for vehicles and motorbikes. Today, around 300 employees work at three plants in Italy, Spain and Poland, where they produce mainly for the original equipment market gas manifolds, steel and aluminium oil sumps, rear suspension ties, steering control arms, wheel hubs, luggage compartment protections, pneumatic suspension supports and handbrake selectors for passenger cars, LCVs, trucks and agriculture.
“The OE Data Service has greatly simplified and accelerated the onboarding process, i.e. our start as a TecAlliance data supplier. We are very satisfied with the Support and the quality of the proposed linkages of our data is very good.”
Loredana Armenio, Sales & Marketing Manager, OMG
First steps in the automotive aftermarket
The technical staff at the Italian location develop products for vehicle manufacturers as well as a growing range of products for the independent automotive aftermarket. Product development is based on the “reverse engineering” principle, i.e. always starting from the OE part respecting the highest quality.
Up to now, spare parts for the aftermarket have mainly been marketed as “private label” products. In order to sell them successfully in the IAM under its own OMG brand and to further expand this business area, the parts manufacturer turned to TecAlliance.
A must for success in the aftermarket
“Up to now, the Aftermarket Division has been dedicated to manufacturing the products for the private labels. To enter the IAM, we first built up a dedicated sales team with know-how in this area. And one thing was clear to us: the TecDoc Catalogue is a must for promoting our brand and being successful in the aftermarket,” explains Loredana Armenio, Sales & Marketing Manager Aftermarket Division at OMG Currently, the company mainly supplies wholesale customers from Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and some customers in the United States. However, OMG is planning the international expansion of its distributor network with the aim of being present with its products in every country in the long term.
OMG has already laid all the foundations for the successful expansion of its business activities in the independent automotive aftermarket. “We have high quality products, a team with a deep experience in the aftermarket and the TecDoc Catalogue, which makes our products visible in the market and is a good door opener for us”, says Loredana Armenio happily. “In product development, we can react very quickly to new requirements from the market and bring 100 to 150 new products to market every year. In the TecDoc Catalogue we can keep our article information up to date on a daily basis and rely on our products being available on the market as quickly as possible”.
OE Data Service ensures a good start
In order to optimally present OMG’s range of products for the automotive aftermarket in the TecDoc Catalogue and to ensure that the products can be found there, OMG opted for TecAlliance’s OE Data Service.
At the TecAlliance location in Maastricht, around 40 employees capture, process and standardise OE data from the electronic catalogues of the various vehicle manufacturers every month. They collect the OE numbers and additional information such as dimensions or materials used, assign the OE number to a vehicle ID (K-type number) from the TecDoc data and adapt all data to the TecDoc Standard.
Cord Schibille, Data Service Specialist at TecAlliance, provided “jump-start” assistance with the OE Data Service to make it as easy as possible for OMG to become a data supplier. “We received a list of OE numbers and further information on OMG’s articles. We analysed and compared them with our OE reference data. This allowed us to link the vehicles to the article and each article was given a standardised product designation corresponding to the TecDoc format. We handed over the result to the customer in ready-to-use TecDoc format,” explains Cord Schibille.
During the free training for the data management tool DMM, which was conducted as a web conference, a TecAlliance employee imported the data directly for the customer. The results were presented live and the further procedure was discussed together: What remains to be done before the start, where are discrepancies in the linkages, which additional functions are available to the customer and how can he use them in the best possible way and much more.
OMG is very satisfied with the result. “The OE Data Service has greatly simplified and accelerated the onboarding process, i.e. our start as a TecAlliance data supplier. We are very satisfied with the support and the quality of the proposed linkages of our data is very good. And we are still convinced of the TecDoc Catalogue: the data is always up-to-date, very comprehensive and correct. The new version 3.0 of TecDoc Catalogue has really brought many improvements and it is very easy for our customers to find the information they need”, summarises Loredana Armenio.
Strong together even in difficult situations
At present, the Covid 19 pandemic poses major challenges for the whole of Italy and the rest of the world. OMG is also affected by the Corona crisis but the company has been able to prove that it is not only very flexible in developing new products for the automotive aftermarket: in order to protect its own employees, the parts manufacturer decided very early on to produce protective masks in its own factories.
“At the beginning it was quite difficult to get the approval from the authorities and the necessary raw materials. But now we have been producing protective masks for internal use since the beginning of April, and we are glad that we can protect our employees from infection with the corona virus in this way,” says Loredana Armenio.
And OMG has also found good solutions for the actual business operations to make the best out of the situation. “Fortunately, we were able to maintain production permanently, even in Italy. The employees work in different shifts and, where possible, also in the home office. The crisis shows us once again the importance of digitisation. The TecDoc Catalogue is an important tool that supports digital collaboration and we are very happy that our data is already available there,” says Loredana Armenio.
