By CRM Staff
Las Vegas, Nevada — October 31, 2017 — Mitchell has made two significant announcements on the first day of the SEMA Show, currently underway in Las Vegas.
The company’s first announcement was the launch of Program Freedom, a system that encompasses the development of Mitchell’s complete claims and repair platform and offers an open-systems alternative to systems that restrict data exchange and extract toll fees.
The announcement said: “For more than 20 years the collision repair and auto claims industries have benefited from open data exchange using CIECA standards. Following recent announcements of closed and proprietary data strategies, Mitchell will be delivering an industry alternative on December 1, 2017. Using Mitchell solutions, industry participants will continue to transact using the benefits of an open and secure data exchange.”
Program Freedom is based on Mitchell’s new cloud-based estimating and communications platform, and the company said it will offer the freedom to share data without restrictions with your choice of business partners, freedom to retain a copy of your data for warehousing and archival purposes, freedom to share data without transaction fees, and freedom to choose EMS or BMS with the security services you select.
The company also said the program would offer the freedom to estimate on any device, any browser, from any location, as well as the freedom to purchase estimating services on either a per-estimate or subscription basis.
For repair facilities, Mitchell said Program Freedom will allow for continued open choice among best-in-class applications and services without the limitations of proprietary protocols and closed data networks. Repairer facilities can choose to share data via EMS or BMS, and which data fields are shared with each partner. Importantly, the data exchange occurs without adding new transaction fees.
“The industry is facing unprecedented challenges due to vehicle complexity, repair, cost and safety. Mitchell is committed to providing a secure, cloud-based platform to enable the innovation the industry needs from hundreds of application and service providers,” said Debbie Day, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Mitchell Auto Physical Damage Solutions.
Meanwhile, the company also announced they have signed a strategic agreement with Repairify to integrate Repairify’s asTech diagnostic services and solutions with the Mitchell Diagnostics System.
Mitchell Diagnostics provides an end-to-end diagnostic system that combines appraisal and collision repair workflow applications with Bosch’s most advanced aftermarket scan tools, while Repairify’s asTech solution provides remote diagnostic services and vehicle connectivity to OEM scan tools via the internet.
“We recognize that in certain repair scenarios, an OEM tool or additional technical assistance may be required to complete the required repairs,” said Jack Rozint, Vice President of Repair Sales and Service at Mitchell. “This partnership allows our joint customers to leverage an integrated solution that provides near 100 percent coverage of vehicles with a common document management system.”
