The pandemic produced supply chain disruptions and an acute shortage of microchips that led to a lack of parts to build new vehicles, and repair and maintain existing ones.

Kia worked with software-as-a-service provider OEConnection to develop a system to keep parts flowing into service departments. The Kia D2D Express program locates and moves hard-to-find and sometimes back-ordered parts from one dealership to another as needed.

The automaker launched the program with OEConnection in July with 100% dealership enrollment. It won the automaker’s Innovation Group Global Best Practice competition in 2022. Since Kia implemented D2D Express, more than10,000 back-ordered parts orders have been filled for dealerships across the country.  

Greg Rivera, OEConnection’s chief product officer, told Automotive News that all automakers have some way to manage back-ordered parts. The options may be integrated and automated or may comprise a small team dedicated to parts sourcing, according to Rivera.

“With Kia, we helped augment and automate their process to expand the reach and impact of their back-order fulfillment program,” he said.

Kia designed the program to be intuitive and to improve parts sourcing by leveraging national dealership stock. Getting parts in hand quickly also could help improve the automaker’s customer service and satisfaction scores. With the new program, emergency back-order fulfillment has increased fourfold.

Chad Huffman, parts manager for Luther Kia of Bloomington in Minn., told Automotive News that the D2D program works well and has helped him secure back-ordered parts he couldn’t get from Kia.

A dealership can look at Kia’s national parts ordering system to locate a component. Kia pays all shipping costs for the parts, and sends a bonus worth 15% the price of the part to the dealership that shared the component.

General Motors has a similar program, called Service Parts Resolved in No Time, or SPRINT, that's available to dealerships, wholesale dealers and ACDelco suppliers. SPRINT allows GM to move special orders as quickly as possible using parts already in a dealership’s parts department pipeline.

Honda offers a dealership-to-dealership program to support Honda and Acura customers. The automaker updated the program in 2022 to address current supply chain disruptions. The company facilitates a parts transfer when a customer’s car is at the shop waiting for service. If another dealership has the needed part, Honda reimburses that dealership 20% and pays for expedited shipping.

Stellantis employs a dedicated cross-functional team that meets daily to monitor situations and apply timely solutions. The company relies on dealership-to-dealership and supplier-to-dealership transfers to secure needed parts.