Standardization…what the heck does that mean?

A few years ago, I remember being in a vendor’s office and they did a presentation about where they thought the next big step needed to be for our company to get ahead of the competition.

We were all ears, trying to understand what the heck they were talking about.

Disruption — as they continued to hold up their Motorola Flip phone saying it was the future of doing business.

At the end of the day, with all the technological advancements we wanted to make and from what we could see on the horizon, it was apparent there is a foundation for it all.

DATA.

Not just any data, but enriched data. Images, colors, weights, dimensions — all the sexy stuff about our industry. Right?

RIGHT!!

Like it or not, Ye Who Has Data and USES it, WINS!

I know Coburn Supply has invested in data with people, purchasing data from some of the suppliers, and working directly with vendors. We use it to make finding products easier for our employees on our ERP, we use it for our customers to have a user-friendly experience on our website and our Coburn Connect app.

But it always seemed that as soon as we had it loaded into our system, something changed. The vendor changed part numbers or designs. We never had the correct spec sheets and could never build submittals for commercial jobs.

It was and still is a constantly changing world. We are always behind.

ASA has recognized how important this topic is to our industry. About two years ago at our LEAD strategic planning retreat, we discussed how ASA could get involved and help guide our industry. Data standardization was and still is complicated, but it is something we felt would be worthwhile for our national association to undertake.

What ASA is trying to do is create paths of least resistance between entities that allows better transfer of up-to-date information that currently is very cumbersome.

And ASA jumped on it. A data taskforce was created to establish a data standard for the PHCP/PVF industry. It is a tall task, but one that is important to the future of our great industry. We have seen other industries adopt standardization and it works. It helps everyone from manufacturer to distributor and every point in between identify important product characteristics in one common industry language. Like color, for example: Is it Black, Blk, BK?

Our team has talked to vendors, rep firms and a multitude of distributors about what is important to them because it is different for everyone. For the better part of a year, this task force has been meeting to discuss all the pertinent descriptions and measures across the industry. What started out as an insurmountable task, is turning into something everyone involved with ASA can use.

This task force is identifying ways to standardize how vendors and distributors alike share and receive data. It creates time savings on both sides so we can do more productive things such as make more products and sell more products.

DATA can be a controversial topic, so we need to be clear about what ASA is trying to do. ASA DOES NOT want to house the data. The data belongs to the vendor and manufacturers. What ASA is trying to do is create paths of least resistance between entities that allows better transfer of up-to-date information that currently is very cumbersome because one vendor says the color is Black, and others say BLK. Neither are wrong, but it can be so much better. And as a side note, if you are looking for the data contact for ASA vendors, go to ASA.net, click on “Industry Intelligence,” then click “Quick Links” to see the vendors that have provided their data specialist for your company to contact.

I am currently flying home from attending the first ASA Innovation Summit. I had an opportunity to talk to the folks volunteering their time to make this standardization happen. And they have a LARGE task in front of them. We have asked them to have it ready by NETWORK2024 in Chicago in November. And they have said that that goal is attainable.

And it will be.

But once they announce it, the work has just begun. We need you…all of you…to embrace this. This will save all of us time and money. We will gain efficiencies by always having the most up-to-date images, descriptions and spec sheets. This WILL help manufacturers, representative agencies, and distributors alike.

It is ASA’s hope and goal that this significant investment of time and subject matter expertise will, once established, create a product data foundation for the PHCP and PVF industry that is best in class. It is an exciting time for our industry, and we hope you will embrace the future with these data standards.

Quite frankly, I can’t wait to find out how we identify something that is Black, or is it Blk?