Improved pricing process

Ciphix’s Avola Rule Engine increases pricing accuracy and flexibility at Carglass Belgium

Increasingly complex calculations required for correct invoice

Carglass Belgium guarantees superfast repair of car glass damage. Then the correct amount has to be charged to the customer. Due to an increasing number of cameras in the car, this is sometimes quite a complex process. Carglass Belgium therefore engaged Ciphix to use the Avola Rule Engine to quickly and effectively determine the correct invoice amount.

Increased complexity
The increase in sensors and cameras makes calculating the cost of windshield replacement increasingly complex
Need for more flexibility
Make adjustments to price without programming

Faster customization without IT knowledge

After repairing a car window, the sensors in a car must be recalibrated. Functions such as lane assist, or speed sign recognition only then function optimally again. This is an important task for the mechanics at Carglass Belgium because the safety of the driver always comes first. In recent years, however, more and more cameras have been added to cars, making this process increasingly complex. This posed operational challenges but also made it increasingly difficult to calculate the right price for recalibration.

Roland Henrard, Enterprise architect at Carglass: “Ensuring that the correct price for recalibration ends up on a receipt is quite complex. This is because the price depends on several factors. Sometimes the car can be recalibrated based on signs. In other cases, it really needs to be driven around. Also, the number of cameras per car often varies considerably which again affects the price. As a result, it regularly happened that the correct price was not shown on the receipt and it took the administration department a lot of time to solve this.”

Carglass Belgium therefore started a project to optimize the processes around recalibration. Improving price calculations was an important part of this. Carglass Belgium decided to look for a solution that decoupled pricing from the basic software system, in this case the ERP. This was to avoid the need for unnecessary software development and to ensure that pricing fluctuations could always be handled quickly, even by employees without IT knowledge.

Flying start with Avola Rule Engine

When she was at Carglass Belgium thinking about how to solve this challenge, a staff member recalled that he had once taken a short training course on using rule engines. A rule engine makes it possible to execute rules in a production environment based on preset parameters without directly modifying the software code.

They saw this as a good solution to this problem and contacted Ciphix, the designer of the Avola Rule Engine. Fortunately, there was an immediate click with the people at Ciphix. Barbara Delvoye, insights manager at Carglass Belgium and responsible for reporting, forecasting and pricing: “What we really liked is that we immediately sat down with the people who were actually going to execute the project with the Avola Rule Engine. The feeling with them was good right away. This allowed us to get a flying start on the project.”

Alexander Brinkhuis, consultant at Ciphix and responsible for this project: “At Carglass Belgium, they quickly had a clear idea of how the Avola Rule Engine could be used for pricing. After a few joint sessions, the model with all the rules in Avola was easily created.”

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Full flexibility

Meanwhile, the rule engine has been in use at Carglass Belgium for several months. Barbara: “With the Avola Rule Engine, we chose the least complex solution to improve pricing around recalibration. There was no need to write complex software code for our back office system. And because the pricing for recalibration is now decoupled from our software systems thanks to the rule engine, we now have complete flexibility if we ever want to switch to another system.”

The right price on the receipt
“Most importantly, however, we haven’t had to do any rebilling since we started using the Avola Rule Engine. The prices are now always correct. This saves us time on administration, we no longer miss out on sales and what is much more crucial, it makes a significant contribution to our reliability towards customers.”

Moreover, when the rule engine was ready, Ciphix organized a training for Carglass Belgium in the use of Avola. Therefore, Carglass Belgium’s pricing specialist coming out of the business can now make adjustments or modify components to the Avola Rule Engine themselves.

Another advantage is that Carglass Belgium can now run simulations of the consequences of a new pricing strategy even before it actually goes live. With complex algorithms around pricing, this is very nice. Because hundreds of scenarios can now be tested first, it is virtually certain that everything will function properly after going live, and so far this has always been the case.

Avola now key pillar of IT architecture at Carglass Belgium
More solutions may be built with the Avola Rule Engine in the future. Roland: “The IT architecture of Carglass Belgium is built on a number of pillars and thanks to this successful trajectory, Avola Rule Engine is now an integral part of it. The rule engine has completely proven its value. We certainly expect more projects where we will deploy the Avola Rule Engine in the near future.”

Full flexibility
Pricing decoupled from back office for optimal future-proofing
Pre-testing of adjustments
Simulations reveal consequences of price changes
Suitable for use by business specialists
Without IT knowledge always up-to-date