A national survey of collision repair facilities conducted by CRASH Network has found that the choice of electronic parts systems used by shops can often be dictated by the requirement of an insurer’s direct repair program.

Of the eight electronic parts systems covered by the survey, CCC’s TRUE Parts system was the one mentioned most frequently for its ease/speed of use. Car-Part.com and OEConnection’s CollisionLink also garnered high marks among shops as being easy to use.

Over 80% of survey respondents reported that PartsTrader and APU Solutions’ PartsNetwork are used because they are required by DRP agreements, rather than for their “ease of use.” Only 7.3 percent of respondents choose PartsTrader for ease of use, and only 2.9 percent cite ease of use as their reason for choosing APU Solutions.

John Yoswick notes, “With so many different programs requiring the use of one parts system or another, it is perhaps not surprising that over half of all the shops responding (53.9 percent) say they have two or more of these systems in use in their facility.”

Nearly one-third of the shops (31.2 percent) said they would not choose any of the current systems if given a choice.

A copy of the full report is available for download from CRASH Network by clicking here.