Without Data Standards, We Stall: The Issue Holding Back Heavy-Duty
Jamie Irvine and Jonathan Larsen break down why heavy‑duty parts data standards still lag behind automotive, how PIES and ACES can solve persistent issues like cross‑references and fitment, and why building consistent data habits is essential for the industry’s future.
Episode 363: Jamie Irvine and Jonathan Larsen explore why data standards—especially cross‑references, fitment data, and images—remain a major challenge in the heavy‑duty parts industry, despite decades of progress in automotive. They discuss how standards like PIES and ACES work, why adoption has lagged in commercial vehicles, and how better data practices can reduce friction, improve accuracy, and strengthen the entire supply chain. They also examine cultural, competitive, and operational barriers that slow adoption, and emphasize that the future belongs to companies that build daily habits around maintaining high‑quality product data. As Jonathan puts it, “Create a habit of working on your data on a day‑in and day‑out basis.”
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Transcript of Episode
Jamie Irvine
Welcome to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. My name is Jamie Irvine. And in this episode, we’re going to talk about data standards, really why they’re so important for heavy-duty. We’re going to get into what some of the challenges have been around data standards, where we’re going to go with them in the future, how to use them to be more successful in your business. This is an episode I’ve been counting down to have because I think that it’s a persistent challenge in the industry that I keep hearing from my clients, from the industry, at shows, we’re going to get into all of that, but I can’t do that alone, so to help me with that, I’m very happy to introduce Jonathan Larsen, Vice President of Digital Products and Standards at the Auto Care Association. Mr. Jonathan, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.
Jonathan Larsen
Very excited about being here. So I have also been counting down for this because I’m excited about let’s talk heavy duty and out we connect that to standards. So thank you.
Jamie Irvine
Yeah, and I think that that’s something that’s important for people. If you’re outside of the heavy-duty industry or perhaps you work and you’re connected to the automotive industry, you might be thinking, isn’t this a problem we solved like 20 years ago? Why would they be talking about that for heavy-duty? We’re going to get into all of that. It’s interesting. We were just at the Heavy Duty Aftermarket Dialogue and Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week in January. And one of the things, Jonathan, I heard from a lot of different people, but especially from the stage at Dialogue, was that cross-reference information, fitment data, and images are still like the big issues with digital in heavy-duty. So from your perspective, why are those things still causing so much friction across the industry?
Jonathan Larsen
Yeah, it’s a great question and a great conversation piece. But in the heavy-duty world, and I’ve always seen this of, you need to be able to take that part, put it on a counter and go, hi, I need another one of these. And how do you do that? Interchange. And if you don’t have fantastic interchange, you’re not going to be able to get to where you need to go with that product. Heavy-duty does it very well, but there can always be improvements from that perspective. We provide that in the PIES documentation and in the standard so that you can send that. And that’s connected to the brand table, so you can codify that content, so you can have that as you do that for the interchanges. So you’re not just having all the different variations of, say, Felpro or all of those different variations of it from that perspective. You can have that one centralized item that you can connect to your interchange from that data.
Jamie Irvine
Just a second though, Jonathan, when you say heavy-duty does a good job of that, let’s dig into that for a minute. So my experience when I entered into the industry in 1998, my mentor’s teaching me the parts business, I would bring them a part and I would say, what is this? And my mentor would say, do you want me to tell you the part number or do you want me to show you how to figure it out? Right? And this is back in the old catalog days. And so what really, they taught me was they taught me how to read a catalog, how to, you know, get the information from the customer, how to go into the catalog and find what I’m looking for. And there were lots of considerations, right? Is it a truck? Is it a trailer? Even within identifying one, let’s say, air valve, what’s the crack pressure for the spring, as an example, there was so much information that you had to memorize. Fast forward a few years and we started to move into this digital kind of web 2.0 era where e-commerce started to rise up. So when you say heavy-duty is doing a good job and you used an expression PIES data, so for those who don’t know what that is, tell us what that is and maybe just explain a little more about how that all transpired, where PIES became something that could be relied on in the industry from a digital perspective.
Jonathan Larsen
Yeah, we can dive into PIES and interchange and talk through that as well. So PIES is the Product Information Exchange Standards that AutoCare has been providing for over 20 years that it does all of the content that is that if you put that product in front of you, like what is that? So those descriptions that you just mentioned to your how do you link to the metadata related to your digital assets or those, the images, if you will? And then the fitment data is the same thing. So that can be in there. Like what is it? What are your attributes that make up that part? What are your dimensions? What is the color of it? All of those different things can be in a PIES file.
Jamie Irvine
Port size, other information related to the way that that particular item actually. So basically it’s the physical description of that item, width, height, weight, port size, application, all those kinds of things.
Jonathan Larsen
Marketing content, all of those things that you want to talk about your product further. And then one of the segments that’s inside PIES is specific to interchange. When I first came on board here, interchange, I think this was a version 6 variant that we had that you can only do a one-to-one relationship. So that made my eye twitch because in the heavy-duty world, it’s not one-to-one. You have one to many, many to many. You have a lot of variations of how you can get that content. So can you go from a kit to all the components in there? How do you do that?
Jamie Irvine
Same brake shoe, different friction material, right? You know, what is something that could be crossed and is compatible and can be used. There’s all those variants that have to be, and as parts people, we kind of memorize that stuff as we encounter it over and over and over again.
Jonathan Larsen
Becomes tribal knowledge. So it’s like, oh yeah, I know how to get to this of one way or another. And that’s something that we’ve tried to build into this so that it’s machine readable and you can say, okay, do you have this? We have a kit section in the PIES schema as well that I know it’s not being used, but I came from an engine kitting background for heavy-duty like long, long ago, and I wanted to make sure we had all of those capabilities in there. And my vision of this is that if you have the inventory for those pieces, but you might not have it all in a box, like you could still sell all you needed because you could come back to that content as well. So those were things that excited me about standardizing this content and being able to communicate that back and forth. And then interchange is definitely one piece of the puzzle that you need to have.
Jamie Irvine
So can I ask a clarifying question on that interchange? Like, is that what they’re talking about when people are talking about cross reference or from your perspective, is there is that a technical term that has a broader meaning?
Jonathan Larsen
I consider it the same as an interchange. So cross reference to that. So it could be it could be a cross reference to an actual OE number that that was out there originally, could be a competitor number that that’s in there that can be included as an interchange or cross-reference.
Jamie Irvine
Or like a super session where we’ve got multiple numbers over a period of time as variants came out and things of that nature.
Jonathan Larsen
That’s correct. You can have that too. Yep.
Jamie Irvine
Yeah. So, okay, so we were talking about from your perspective, like why there’s still a fair amount of friction. Why in 2026 are companies still saying cross-reference information, fitment data and images are their biggest pain points with digital?
Jonathan Larsen
Because those are still the core. If you don’t have those, then if you’re not providing that content or high quality from the images, then you’re doing a disservice as you go forward to have that feeling of trust, if you will, for what you’re going to get from what you said is that connection to the data.
Jamie Irvine
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We’re back from our break. Make sure you go and check out the links in our show notes to all of our sponsors. OK, let’s get back to this episode.
From my perspective, what I hear is I hear that distributors say suppliers are unwilling to provide the data in its complete form for one reason or another. Suppliers say distributors are not asking or engaging or using it efficiently. And so there just seems to be like we all agree that it’s needed, but there seems to still be a little bit of friction there between the different players in that. So from your perspective, especially with the experience that the Auto Care Association had in the automotive industry, where you’ve really done a great job over 20 years of unifying that data and making your make models readily available, we understand it’s a different world in commercial. But what’s going on there that is also causing probably more friction than needs to be there?
Jonathan Larsen
I mean, there’s probably a couple different things. I can see possibly they consider it a competitive advantage to have that internally and not providing that content when it comes to cross-references. For the fitment data, we have to kind of unpack that one by itself of like, how are we defining fitment? Are we talking about the actual product information or are we talking how it connects to the vehicle? And we can unpack that one here as well. And then the images are you got to have them and you got to have high quality content. And if it’s not available, they’re going to go somewhere else to get a part because they’re going to have that availability. Why it’s still an issue, I don’t know why, because you can take a fantastic image on your phone and provide it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And but I recall having we were doing gasket images a long time ago and you got to have it defined as the standard of how are you going to present this and how are you going to present this consistently? I remember a gentleman, so he laid all this stuff out for this gasket set, and it was one step away from you open the box and you shoved it out onto the table and took a picture. But in a gasket set, you’re going to have metal, you’re going to have rubber, you’re going to have some other things that are going to reflect, and you’re going to have to define how you’re going to shoot that. So in our data standards, we have that in there as well of like, how do you need to go through that? How do you need to send that? But it should be laid out consistently so that you can have that, so you can say what’s going on with those products. So even though you can take a fantastic picture, it’s what is that consistency in that picture that is important as well?
Jamie Irvine
I was doing some voice of customer work with a client who was looking at really trying to just figure out how they could upgrade the user experience on their e-commerce platform. And so of course, all of this was part of the conversation, but I remember one comment from a customer just jumping off the report at me and it was like, those damn, you know, no image available boxes. Like, right? Like, we need to be able to see what it is that we’re trying to buy. Let’s go back a step, though. So I think I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why it’s important to have, like, the dimensions and all of that. An image, again, pretty self-explanatory. What’s the big issue when it comes to vehicle application? When we say fitment data, we don’t just mean, we actually want to know how does this part connect to a vehicle, or which vehicle does it connect to, right? It seems like that has been more readily available to the aftermarket in the automotive industry, and it’s been a much more difficult road for the heavy-duty. Is that just my perception, or is there some truth to that?
Jonathan Larsen
In this day and age, everything should be able to be mapped, so connecting the vehicle to the parts, I remember a while back that somebody had a picture of two trucks that they had the same badging on the front, but from the ground up, they were two different builds. You should still be able to do to map that content and say, this is what that build is, similar to what we do on an automotive vehicle here as well. We just have the ability to do more from that perspective. I would challenge, and this is one of the things that I’m looking forward to as we keep going forward, and you had mentioned this, is that let’s… Let’s go through it. If we’re missing something or if we need to have those conversations of like, how can this be done? I challenge that because I want to be able to sell more content. I don’t know why people have not done more with the ACES content. So this is the other standard that we provide, which is the aftermarket catalog exchange standard or content exchange standard. And we’ve been able to provide this for 20 plus years. The vision is that you should be able to put any vehicle that we have in the VCDB into map this content. And we love that opportunity because you can have that standardized part to the vehicle capability.
Jamie Irvine
But in aftermarket, if I work for an independent aftermarket distributor, I don’t have a year, make, model, VIN drop down. If I work in an automotive parts store, I do for aftermarket. But if I work in heavy-duty, I certainly don’t. I mean, that’s always been the domain of the truck dealership. So we should be able to do it. But there’s this barrier. So what’s going on there?
Jonathan Larsen
I still don’t know what the barrier is other than related to the year, make, model. There’s a lot of things that even if it is a year, make, model that we have on a truck, you could always back into it and just do make, model from it and have that, especially for the lookup. I mean, that would be fantastic to be able to say, yep, these are connected to that specific vehicle. So there’s an opportunity. It would be a good, good place to keep going forward with that.
Jamie Irvine
Going back a few years ago, one of my clients had spent millions of dollars developing their own parts data, and they were brute force doing it like they and when they were putting the year, make, model information together, you know, they did discover that that within a year, make, and model of a commercial truck, there would be a huge amount of variants. And those variants would show up based on the way the truck was spec because these are work vehicles. So it’s not just like ordering your Ford Fusion or Honda Accord with a trim package difference. This was a, I’m ordering this truck to do oil field work. And then the next fleet is ordering this exact same truck, but they’re specking it to do over the highway you know long haul transportation, completely different drive train configuration there’s a lot of differences so yeah like the trim inside the truck was the same but there was a lot of variance there and so you know inside of their technology that they built, they would have these dropdown menus that just said, like, you know, we’ve discovered nine variants on this model. But what those variants were, were difficult to even explain, right? So then I became aware of PIES and ACES and what you were doing at the Auto Care Association to try to push that forward. And, you know, this was, again, this was five, six years ago. So I was very excited, like, hey, look, in five years, we should be able to have this. And we just don’t. And so, It’s a real challenge. And I think that’s something that people need to understand, right? Data standards adopted by the heavy-duty aftermarket and OEM manufacturers of commercial equipment, this is gonna drive value across the entire supply chain. But how, right? So can you explain that?
Jonathan Larsen
Yeah, so the big things that have come out of this, and one of the things that it’s been more than five years that we’ve talked through, just doing the PIE side, so like everybody has that content, how can we how can we use that? And we really haven’t had the conversation of like, well, how can you use the VCDB, the vehicle configuration, along with ACES in the heavy-duty world? And pushing that content to say, hey, it’s here, let’s see how we can use it, is probably a piece that we need to be able to communicate more. But we’ve been working on this, very excited about that content. And I’m sorry, I’m still going through your question or your comment of the two different variations that they have. So we have that capability to, even if those products were on something else, and we have those different permutations of the engines, if you will. So if there was, we know that there’s three different engines or six different engines, you could say, well, it was this engine, it was this transmission, this is what we did with it, and you can put those together with the standard. So that is a capability that can be done. And I just don’t feel like it’s being utilized to the level that it could or should be able to.
Jamie Irvine
Before we get into kind of a deeper conversation on the whole value proposition here of all of this, let’s talk about something else then. Is there a barrier in in commercial vehicles with the manufacturers that doesn’t exist in automotive?
Jonathan Larsen
It’s a shift. They did a really good job, and I don’t know whose hand I need to shake of doing the year, make, model on the automotive side of like, yep, thank you, ’cause that ability to have that on the automotive side has been fantastic. But we go into it from a different set of questions that you ask. You ask that like, what is it and what is it for? And so those kind of are the questions that are led when you get to the counter.
Jamie Irvine
Yeah. And certainly, I mean, if you are teaching a parts person how to work on the aftermarket side, it is very important that they ask the right set of questions to be able to identify the part that’s needed. Just that simple first question of, is it a truck or is it a trailer that this is for? Because there’s lots of things that, you know, can be called the same thing, but they’re different depending on if it’s a tractor or a trailer. Okay, so let me ask you, going back to the kind of real value that these standards provide the entire supply chain, so think about a manufacturer that’s going from raw material to creating a part, through their distribution network, either on the dealership side or aftermarket, into the hands of repair shops and technicians that work for fleets, being installed on a vehicle and then being used. Like, how does the standardization of the data create extra value through that entire supply chain.
Jonathan Larsen
From a manufacturer that starts to collect this content, the common language that you then have with your trading partner is the biggest thing that you get out of this. Having that we call it this, you call it this, and we can harmonize that from that perspective is probably the biggest thing that comes out of it. And along with that is really the ability to then turn that data over and over again so that you can say, okay, we’ve added more parts to it so you can expand that. If you know what the product is, then it really helps you from being able to add new products to the market faster. And then from the backside of it, if you’ve given all of the content and you’ve provided that, you’re going to have less returns from that perspective too, because you have the right part at the right place at the right time. So you have that capability and that opportunity to provide consistent data.
Jamie Irvine
I’m still not sure I understand what the obstacles have been in creating the data standards on the commercial vehicle side. So could you just give us a little history lesson on what that has been historically?
Jonathan Larsen
Let’s see, we probably still have to go back about at least 15 years. We had content. It was just year, make, model. And that was really it that we had. And as we saw companies that do both, so they do an automotive and a heavy-duty, they were like, Hey, is there an opportunity for us to go through this? And you still have to break down, because heavy-duty, I consider, it’s anything bigger than a car. That’s what I consider heavy-duty. It’s all everything. So it can be construction equipment. It can be you’re building a new facility. I mean, any of that stuff can be part of it. Within that, they really focused on the vehicle side being on highway. So semi-trucks and those larger vehicles that are there. So that was the focus from the vehicle side. From the PIE side, we went through, that was about eight years ago, that we went through a process of saying, okay, do we have all the part terminologies, those descriptions codified? And we’ve went through that process. It was probably a little over a year and a half that we went through that. And along with that, we went through those part terminologies. What are the attributes that we need to have for those? So we’ve cleaned up, harmonized that content and added that. So that was an opportunity from the PADB that we have. So it’s the product attribute database. It could have lists of different descriptions, different values that are in there, and we work through that as well.
Jamie Irvine
It’s almost like prior to this effort, we had a whole bunch of people speaking different languages. They all speak different languages, but they all agreed on some common words that we would all understand what the meaning was. Is that kind of like what you just described? Yeah. So now you have the ability to have these different manufacturers and their partners all at least using the same terminology, the same language, the same standard. Okay. So then we move into the actual use of it. And again, we find ourselves in 2026, where these are still listed as the biggest problems. I know I have some opinions on why companies are still having that, but I’d like to know what you think, and then I’ll let you know.
Jonathan Larsen
I always think of this. This happened in the aftermarket world or in the automotive side as well. It’s kind of this chicken and the egg. You can keep asking for it, and you can keep asking for it. Well, only this one person wants it. And when is that it changes over to like, it’s not a nice to have, it’s a necessity that you need to have in the market. And how do you make it a habit that you’re providing this? Because you can do it at one time and like, oh yeah, we’ll do our data right this second, but how do you make it part of the habits that you do each day that this becomes consistent? This is something that you’re providing to your trading partners on a regular basis from a manufacturer side, and then whoever the retailer is or the distributor community is. Like how do they ingest that content and then be able to provide that to whomever is trying to put that on the vehicle as well?
Jamie Irvine
I think therein lies actually the answer, at least from my perspective. So I know that some of the distributors I’ve worked with, they want that data to be part of their intellectual property, their value proposition. And so if I just use the standardized data that is fed to me by supplier A, B, and C, all my competitors are exactly the same. And then the product and the service that’s attached to distributing that product is more commoditized. So I think there’s resistance and friction there from the distributor perspective. I also think that for a very long time, the end user that was walking into the parts store or was phoning down and talking to their favorite parts person. These individuals grew up in a world where everything was done, you know, pre-digital. And we trend very older with technicians and on both on the parts side and the repair side. As they age out, there’s like four really knowledgeable people and they all retire. And then there’s one like guy in midlife who’s then expected to pick up the capacity that those other four people with like 40 years experience each previously had. And so when I see the shift happened the most, the fastest is when the customers start asking for it. When the customers start demanding it, like the end user customer, right? That’s when change starts to really happen. And so I can see this acceleration happening over the last five, six years as the demographics have shifted. And I see these younger people stepping into senior roles and they’re changing the way they do things. But on the other side of that equation, I’ve also watched the fleets get much more serious about standardizing their operations as well. And so like we’ve had other guests on from the Technology and Maintenance Council talk about VMRS codes, right? And attaching the VMRS codes at the fleet level to the product. You know, it’s very interesting. I think heavy-duty has just been very slow to adopt. The Web 2.0 technology, the stuff that the social media platforms was built on, the stuff that the e-commerce platforms was built on, that technology stack, I think was adopted by the public a lot faster in the private or the light-duty side of the business. And on the commercial side, it just was very slow to be adopted. And so for a very long time, it was like, I know I need to do this, but I’ve got eight problems to solve today, and I’m going to kick that one down the road because it’s not like a five-alarm fire yet. And then all of a sudden, 20 years went by. And I see so many clients of mine really struggling with the financial cost of building and integrating their own data, right? And that’s what they try to do. They want to build it themselves. They want to kind of own it themselves. They want that to be part of their value proposition. They don’t want everything they do to be turned into a commodity. And yeah, there’s a lot of pressure there. And those are the forces that I see all operating. I don’t know how accurate that is, but that’s what I see, at least anecdotally, from the clients that I’ve worked with over almost, you know, well, six years now.
Jonathan Larsen
I agree with that. The change of who is asking for the data and the market itself has helped shift that as well. I will also tell you that we’re ready to go. So if the industry is ready to adopt and continue to move forward, we’re here to help them from that perspective. So I’m excited about that.
Jamie Irvine
Okay, so that kind of brings something else up for me then. If you guys are saying, hey, look, the Auto Care Association has done the heavy lifting, we’re ready to go, we’ve got everything in place, then really, and I guess that chicken and egg thing still exists, right? Because you have to have the manufacturers buy in and use it, and then you have to have the distributors accept that data and bring it into their platforms and then serve it to the end user customers. So how is this going to change? What’s the catalyst that’s going to cause this thing to finally break wide open? Because I still feel like, I think everybody knows, everybody knows this is needed. When I hear people talk up and down the supply chain, they all talk the same thing, right? We need this information. We need this data. We have to use these standards. But what’s the thing that’s going to break it wide open?
Jonathan Larsen
Wow. I think we could solve world peace here, too, and maybe we’ll go from there. But it’s going to be little pieces that’s going to build on top of each other is really the big thing that’s going to be the catalyst. As we were talking through some of the things, just to help, if somebody is looking to do this, I would start to, I would do an inventory of what you have right now. And if these are the three places, so if they feel that their cross-references, their fitment and their images are, you got to just be able to break those down too of like, well, what are we missing for those different things? If you want to start, if they’re starting at zero, probably the biggest thing to look at is, when they’re introducing a new product and do the whole process or whatever they define as the whole process to collect that data for the new products and start it from there. And see if it works. See what’s working when you’re talking from the manufacturer side and provide that content to your trading partners. Is this working? Is it not? And continue to iterate through that instead of trying to eat the whole elephant. Just one piece at a time is what needs to be done here.
Jamie Irvine
Yeah, that just, you hit the nail on the head there. It’s like, when was the best time to start on this? Well, it was yesterday. But if you didn’t do it yesterday, then today is the best time to start on it, right? And I do agree with you also, you have to have some way of just systematically moving forward. And like, let’s face it, Pareto principle applies to this, right? I mean, we still know that on average, 80% of our outcomes are coming from 20% of our input. So get the 20% done and then have a progressive way of tackling the rest of it one piece at a time. And that’s better than continuing to ignore it. and then being so far behind, like you don’t want to get to 2030 and be so far behind, you couldn’t possibly catch up. I think this whole discussion around data and standardization and the use of it and everything, I think it’s so much more than just getting like more purchases on our e-commerce platform. Because going back to the demographic shifts that are happening and also the technological revolution we’re going through with AI and robotics that’s coming next, if your business is not making your customers more productive, you’re going to be out of business. I firmly believe that in the future.
Jonathan Larsen
I agree with you on that, yeah.
Jamie Irvine
You know, for all the executives out there, I know you’re trained to look at the bottom line and to balance all of your costs, but I think you have to also layer into your evaluation the cost of not doing it, which could be everything. People who are listening to this, we’ve been talking for a while about it. We’ve kind of gone all over the map, but that’s good. I was looking forward to getting into it. Let’s just talk a little bit about the future. Where’s this thing going and how should they position themselves for success in the future?
Jonathan Larsen
As I mentioned, start doing an analysis of what you have right now. What is that thing to get you to 2030? Are we going to have all those pieces and what are we missing that we have to have from that perspective? But also get involved. The standards have been around and we’ve enhanced, changed, improved. We continue to add new things into the data standards. And if there’s something that’s missing or something that needs to change that this will be that, as you mentioned, Jamie, of like the catalyst that will like everybody will lock in and move forward. I’d love to hear that too. Like what’s the opportunity there to get more engagement.
Jamie Irvine
You’ve been listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine. And we’ve been speaking with Jonathan Larsen, who is the Vice President of Digital Products and Standards at the Auto Care Association. If you’d like to learn more about what this association is all about and what they can do for you, visit autocare.org. Don’t be deceived by the word auto. They are absolutely committed to heavy-duty. Jonathan, thank you for being on the show. I’m afraid we may have just actually raised more questions in people’s minds than answers.
Jonathan Larsen
I’m okay with that. I think that’s going to help.
Jamie Irvine
Yeah, let’s get the conversation going, right? And I want to conclude with this one thing. After all the things that we talked about today, what’s the one thing you want people to remember from listening to this episode?
Jonathan Larsen
Create a habit of working on your data on a day in and day out basis.
Jamie Irvine
Boom, mic drop. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for being on the show. I appreciate it.
Jonathan Larsen
Yeah, thank you. Glad to be here.
Jamie Irvine
And for all of you who have listened right to the very end of our conversation, I want to thank you very much for your time and attention. And as always, I want to encourage you to be heavy-duty.
