Ortho taps into MOTOR’s trifecta of comprehensive vehicle service information, alignment of futuristic priorities and a strong reputation in the industry to transform automotive data for the next generation of technicians

By Leona Scott

Consider the ongoing dilemma facing technicians in every bay across the country: What is the fastest and most efficient way to execute a safe repair while keeping customers happy and shops humming with productivity and profitability?

For decades, technicians have relied on standard forms of information to repair cars including OEM Service information websites and technical service bulletins (TSBs). But thanks to the 21st-century technology of voice AI, there is a new solution to help guide the next generation of automotive technicians.

Voice assistant technology offers new service information solutions

After much research, Ortho chose MOTOR’s comprehensive data solutions to power its voice assistant software.

Ortho, whose parent company is RAIN Technology Inc., is the first-ever voice assistant purpose-built to drive efficiency in auto repair, empowering auto service shops and professionals to work more efficiently and drive more revenue. Ortho delivers accurate data on command in seconds, right in the bay, through a portable, hands-free solution. From torque specs to fluid types and measurements to maintenance intervals, Ortho is the easiest and fastest way to access hundreds of data points for nearly every car on the road. 

Before the product had been built, the challenge facing Ortho was how it could offer rapid, robust and reliable data solutions for the new generation of technicians. 

Enter MOTOR. 

Kim Conti, vice president of product for Ortho. 

Vice president of product for Ortho, Kim Conti, and her team turned to MOTOR after much research, concluding MOTOR was the best choice to power its innovative voice assistant software.

The leading reason Ortho selected MOTOR was the sheer breadth and depth of information it possessed. No other database compares to MOTOR’s vast collection of data, categorized by year, make, model, engine and VIN. MOTOR datasets are available in the Auto Care ACES (Aftermarket Catalog Enhanced Standard) VCdb industry standard for vehicle definition.

MOTOR solutions power Ortho

With this partnership, Ortho has tapped into four key MOTOR solutions so far:

• Specifications that provide Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) engineering standards for the most common repairs and adjustments. Intelligently organized for rapid retrieval, specifications is optimized for quick-reference applications.

Ortho delivering an A/C refrigerant fluid type specification to a technician, drawing on MOTOR’s OEM fluids database.

• Fluids provide recommendations and capacities for fluids from OEMs. The fluids data is the most frequently used data in the Quick Lube industry today. Using this data, you can efficiently determine the proper fluid specifications required to maintain your vehicle.

Ortho drawing on MOTOR’s OEM maintenance intervals database to inform service needs on a 2018 Honda CR-V at 50,000 miles. 

• Maintenance Schedules provide the OEM maintenance schedules with a specific estimated work time attached to each operation for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Using this data, you can create a custom maintenance schedule based on selected operations.

• Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) provide the technical and recall notices as published by the OEM. Through rapid and precise retrieval of this data, you can build trust with vehicle owners and reduce the diagnostic time for technicians.

MOTOR understands technicians

Conti said in addition to the comprehensive MOTOR databases going back to the early 1990s, MOTOR helped Ortho structure the content of their voice-assistant software.

“MOTOR understands how technicians talk, so they guided us in using natural language in our software,” she says, which included helping them find common related words and synonyms technicians use.

Ortho displaying an OEM-provided serpentine belt routing diagram, a frequent voice lookup for technicians that saves major time.

Through this partnership, Ortho relied on MOTOR’s status and reputation as an aggregated service information industry leader. Voice assistant software can be tricky, says Conti,  from a user perspective–since there is a wide variance of vocabulary, jargon and technical terms; as a result, Ortho knew it needed to power its software with comprehensive data sets valuable for all technicians.

A user asking Ortho for spindle nut torque, one of the many commonly used specs MOTOR provides to Ortho customers.

“Voice assistants in shops are a fairly new solution. As we build a custom assistant for the workforce, we wanted to use the most trusted resource provider in the industry–MOTOR–to establish trust with technicians from the beginning, so they knew they were getting certified answers from a dependable source of information,” says Conti.

Besides the business side of things, Conti is excited to work with a partner like MOTOR because it believes the innovative solutions Ortho provides will radically change the industry’s future.

“MOTOR shares our enthusiasm in transforming automotive data to the next generation of technicians,” she says. “The way people look up information in their jobs is vastly changing. MOTOR has all of the great information but accessing that information could be cumbersome. Through our voice assistant software, we want to make it a more efficient process that saves shops time and money.”

Voice assist solutions save time, money

Since many technicians are paid a flat rate, they need to work quickly and efficiently in the bay to service a car and access information. That information-gathering process typically requires them to go back and forth from the vehicle to a computer terminal resulting in many shop inefficiencies and wasted time.

Ortho’s voice assistant software is a hands-free solution powered on tablets and mountable on a cart or to a magnetic pole nearby a vehicle where technicians can readily and easily access information hands-free.

Ortho envisions its voice assistant software as a bridge to help technicians service cars more quickly and efficiently. Using natural language, technicians can ask the voice assistant how to service a particular vehicle. For example, in servicing a Ford F-150, a technician may ask, “What engine oil do I need to use?” Ortho’s software provides technicians with answers both in visual and audio form.

The hands-free nature of the voice assistant software is especially helpful for technicians as they can often be found working underneath a vehicle and can still call out to Ortho, to access information. 

For example, a technician could be under a vehicle getting ready to tighten down on a nut and say, “Hey Ortho what is the torque spec on a front brake caliper?” Ortho, having already loaded the context of the vehicle being repaired, would respond with a quick answer and the technician can keep working, saving them time.

Once Ortho found its partner in MOTOR, it worked with a team of MOTOR experts to fine-tune the software. MOTOR can populate Ortho’s voice assistant delivering data via DaaS on a regular, consistent basis.

Another standout in working with MOTOR, says Conti, is it gave Ortho access to its “Sandbox.” MOTOR’s Sandbox is a free tool that allows developers access to its DaaS data sets. It provides full access to two vehicles to build and test their application. After the customer signs up to receive all the data they are subscribing to, it’s a matter of flipping a switch: something especially useful for start-ups like Ortho.

“They helped us think through scenarios and asked, ‘what if you did this’ or ‘technicians are going to ask this’… they helped guide us with best use cases,” says Conti. With several dozen repair facilities using the MOTOR-powered Ortho voice assistant software, the company is on track to aggressively expand and grow, positioning it as a cutting-edge solution for the future of automotive repair and service.

Here is the process if you are a technology provider wanting to explore MOTOR’s Solutions:

• When a company reaches out to MOTOR, it would first meet with one of its sales directors, together with a MOTOR software engineer. 

• MOTOR’s team would then listen carefully to what the customer is planning on doing and even more so, how they plan on using the data. 

• MOTOR’s software engineers draw from years of experience that can then guide the customer using what they have seen in similar use cases.

• Usually, there are multiple meetings. During this time, the developers from the technology providers are free to start working in MOTOR’s Sandbox.

• Once both parties have a solid use case defined, MOTOR can provide a proposal, pass it through OEM governance for approval and, once the customer signs on, its Customer Service team takes over. 

• It delivers the data and helps with any questions along the way. Typically, the account is turned over to an Account Director (AD) after a year. The role of an AD is to take care of the customer’s needs as far as any potential new databases, conduct Account Reviews and help the customer through the renewal process. 

If you want to join Ortho and the many other technology providers that have used MOTOR’s data solutions to grow their businesses aggressively, please visit MOTOR.com. 

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