Manheim has been busy fine-tuning its technology, as well as bringing new products to the market and strategic moves to further convenience and efficiency for its clients. 

Brad Burns, associate vice president of vehicle information at Manheim, has helped lead the push. Manheim put Burns to work, starting with the promotion to his current role at the start of 2021, in “leading the transformation of Manheim’s vehicle information,” and working to drive “client confidence” across the Manheim Digital Marketplace. 

Burns was even featured in a special series of the Auto Remarketing Podcasts, noting digital wholesale is “moving at the speed of light.” 

Burns talked with Auto Remarketing about the latest in technology from Manheim. Also discussed were themes of technology development since COVID turned the wholesale industry “on its head,” as he describes it. 

Burns, with 19 years with Manheim and a year and-a-half in his new position, is bringing his “operational perspective” from years in the field and his hands-on experience with auctions to what the company is doing with technology and vehicle information. 

When COVID hit, to stay in the game, the auto auction industry had to go digital. Burns pointed out that clients lost access to physical auction properties, and they couldn’t come kick the tires, or as Burns said it, “‘do the old scratch and sniff test.’”

“It forced them (dealers and vehicle wholesalers) to leverage tools that some of them were very comfortable with and others were not,” he said. 

“It really puts a bright light on the importance of accurate and consistent, transparent vehicle information … it’s advanced the urgency for technology improvements drastically,” Burns said. “So, we probably accelerated five plus years in a really short period of time in terms of technology.” 

These days, Manheim is gearing technology toward helping clients make confident decisions remotely. 

Manheim went from seeing roughly half of its transactions being purchased by digital buyers to settle right around 79% to 80% (this was after hitting 100% shortly after COVID broke onto the scene). 

Those numbers remain high, even though over half of Manheim’s physical auctions are back over for business in the lanes, as well. 

“There’s been a behavioral shift from our clients and how they’re conducting business and how comfortable they are conducting business digitally,” Burns said. 

Much of that, he said, can be attributed to the suite of tools that Manheim provides.

Although COVID certainly put digital on the front burner, Manheim was seeing slow but steady increases in use in terms of digital adoption since its simulcast product hit the market in 2002. 

And the rapid shift to digital sales caused by COVID wasn’t as much of a hurdle for Manheim since it had a well-established digital purchase platform already implemented, and one which has been continuously improved and integrated over the years. 

“It’s been a big investment piece for us for a long, long time and has been continually improved and iterated on,” Burns said. “I think the big change that’s happened is the focus on investment and what information we collect and how we collect it, and what we share and how we share it.”’

And this strategy is utilized during acquisition decisions as well. Recently, Manheim purchased a company called Fyusion, a computer vision company and leader in immersive vehicle imaging solutions for automotive and other industries. Before the acquisition, Fyusion was already working with the wholesale giant on mobile imaging and condition capture tools in the Manheim Express app.  

“A big part of our focus has been operationalizing their technology; their focus is on imaging vehicles in a 3D manner that allow for a much better view of the car,” said Burns. “So, we have updated the handheld imaging technology, both hardware and software, to leverage Fyusion technology at every location in the United States and in Canada, as well.”

The result is more accurate colors, a much higher resolution image and the “ability for clients to make their own determinations about the damage they see or the severity and the type of repair required,” he said. 

And it works to empower and build confidence with the potential customers leveraging those images online, and to make more informed decisions. 

Burns said the “next iteration with imaging” is something the company is piloting now and will be deploying late this year and throughout next year. This is fixed imaging gantries. 

Try imagining a sort of tunnel that the vehicle is driven through that contains 58 camera and 96 LED light panels. 

“The output is an incredible image set that offers consistent angles, consistent elevations, consistent lighting, and consistent backgrounds … so whether the car is going to be imaged in Minneapolis or Tampa or Atlanta or San Francisco, you’ll have the same quality, same consistency across the board,” Burns said. 

Burns said the “incredible thing” that happens with the image set is that the images are pieced together and run through an algorithm that the team at Fyusion is building, which will leverage artificial intelligence and computer vision to diagnose vehicle repairs. The goal is to describe vehicle damage in a format that is going to be incredibly consistent and, and help to remove a layer of subjectivity that makes condition reports challenging for some folks. 

And the physical sale will also be part of what Manheim does, he said, noting there is something “almost magical” about the energy in the atmosphere at an auto auction. 

And Manheim has some clients that live in close proximity to their physical auctions that still want to do the assessing and purchasing in-person. 

“I think what we’ve seen is a behavioral shift where we have a lot of clients that have understood that there’s a value associated with transacting digitally … they get to spend more time in their office. They get to spend more time in their lots selling cars, which is the whole object of their business,” Burns said. 

In the past, Burns said, digital vehicle condition reports were mostly a cosmetic appraisal. Now, “the next iteration of this vehicle information is providing a more complete view of the vehicle, including structural integrity, safety equipment — the mechanical side of things.” 

Preparing for the EV ‘wave’ 

Condition report information will have to continue with the inevitable wave of EVs hit the remarketing industry in the next few years.  

“They’ll (condition reports) be focused on the battery health that’s largely an unknown at this point … in an electrified vehicle, that’s the most important and most expensive aspect of that car,” Burns said. 

Alan Lang, division vice president of marketplace operations at Manheim, was also on a call with Auto Remarketing, and has been intimately involved in Manheim’s investments made on the EV side. This involves implementing electric vehicle infrastructure, efforts otherwise known as “Electrified Manheim.” 

It’s been a multi-year investment strategy. The first goal is outfitting all physical auctions with charging capabilities. The company just completed its third year of the five- to six-year journey with EVs. Manheim currently has 67 locations fitted with charging capabilities, with a little over 700 charging stations implemented, as of early August. 

“Most of the EVs will come back into the remarketing space as we continue to be focused on the needs and servicing the EV clients and then keeping that pace up and investment up,” Lang said. 

Manheim has devised a scoring model for rating the health of EV batteries coming through the remarketing channel. 

“This is what I think is most important to our clients when they’re acquiring inventory in the wholesale space,” Lang said. 

Manheim measures many factors. The energy going in and out of the battery, the comparison of battery ranges versus new and now used, and what its use life looks like.  Information provided also includes whether the vehicle is still under warranty. 

Lang explained that most electrified vehicles are still on an 8-year average warranty. 

“So, we’re able to provide a patented algorithm scoring model, ranging from one to five. Typically, we’re seeing most fall in that four to five range,” Lang said. 

Ultimately, Burns and the team at Manheim are focused on raising the confidence level of clients conducting business digitally. 

“That really is at the core all this investment and all those technology developments and, and advancements: it is about driving confidence,” Burns said. “We want our clients to feel that transacting digitally with the tools that we’re providing is better than being beside the car.”

Although that’s a tall task, Burns contends the company is well on its way to achieving its goals.

“The fact that so many clients have adopted these increasing digital habits shows that we’re headed in the right direction and that we’re focused on the right things,” Burns said. 

Reconditioning is also a growing service for Manheim. 

Marty D’Amato, vice president of reconditioning, said the company is doing a lot of work and investment in this area. A stellar job in this area will also serve to ramp up confidence among digital buyers. 

D’Amato said that focus is certainly on the wholesale side in terms of services on the mechanical side, but the retail side of things is seeing the most growth. 

“So, there’s a lot of growth opportunity that we’re really partnering with them to help them with every reconditioning need,” D’Amato said. 

Bob Grounds, Manheim’s AVP of business process design and improvement, said that doesn’t just mean keeping up with the times with the latest paint technology, or the physical assets like lifts and paint booths — it’s also about system requests from fleet and commercial clients to provide safety repairs. 

“It’s an evolving side of the business,” Grounds said. 

“And we’re still learning through some of those things, how we’re going to service EV batteries, exchanges and recycling, etc. There’s a lot of different things. As we get further into meeting these needs … we’ve got a great commitment from our clients, and we’re excited about what we’re going to be able to do to differentiate and lead the industry,” Grounds said. 

LotVision investment paying off 

One success story is the company’s investment in LotVision, a wireless tracking device placed in a vehicle that works to help dealers, transporters and team members locate vehicles on auction lots. 

Grounds said it has been a six- to eight-year “journey” with LotVision. 

Manheim started its efforts in the tracking area with several companies vying for the same business on our lot. 

“They (the team at LotVision)  truly just blew them away. Fast forward five years, and here down the road we have, give or take, 99% coverage on all of our lots,” Burns said. 

According to Burns, it has become more than just a vehicle tracker. 

“It’s truly turned into our vehicle management system,” Burns said. Knowing where every car is, whether it’s on the lot or off, is crucial as “finding those vehicles becomes very, very easy. 

“You put that information in our clients’ hands, and they have that same ability — even in the digital space,” he said.

Manheim has seen some customers who normally come in to “kick the tires” becoming more confident buying online and from a larger geographic area. 

That’s where the DTC (diagnostic trouble codes) codes come in, Burns said. 

“That’s where we can pull some of the mechanic information from our sensors, and we display that on the LotVision application,” Burns said. “Now those folks don’t even have to come in on the lot to find out what that information is. 

“It’s twofold,” Burns said. “So, it relieves the need for some of those clients to come into the auction to get some of that diagnostic data on the vehicles that they were getting themselves. And if they do come on the lot, they can find it (vehicle information) a lot faster.” 

Manheim focuses on client shared services 

Dana Lowenthal, vice president of Client and Business Solutions shared services at Manheim, spoke with Auto Remarketing on her new role with the company, and efforts to provide further efficiency for the company’s clients. Lowenthal spoke mostly to the client side of Manheim’s latest innovation and strategies. 

Lowenthal is a former product and technology executive at Manheim, and also was a leader in the company’s field operations before returning to help create what the company is calling Client and Business Solutions. 

“And it all worked perfectly, because we had a number of initiatives where we were looking to drive a better consistent experience for our clients along with efficiencies in our operating locations,” she said. “This work was being done well ahead of COVID, but when it hit it meant we were prepared, and implementation of these services really accelerated.” 

That’s where her role came in. 

A lot of Manheim’s clients are still buying online, even as physical auctions continue to open up further in-person as COVID restrictions lessen. This is due to the current supply constraints, and dealers and commercial clients are looking outside their geographic location to source quality pre-owned vehicles. 

“The services we have now really enabled our clients to be served more consistently across the footprint, no matter where they were previously doing business,” Lowenthal said.

She also said the company has implemented call centers in its biggest market centers and locations to host and facilitate some of its shared services. 

“We have call centers across the country. And whenever we have large events or weather, or there’s a big demand happening within a market, we can shift resources virtually,” she said. 

Lowenthal also mentioned Manheim’s virtual block specialists have been integral in keeping operations efficient online when COVID hit. 

Since creating the new Client and Business Solutions group, Manheim has worked to acquire more market share for clients at more sales across the country.  

“Now the sellers can look to one point of contact in a single team to help them with their consolidated sale, balancing and payments,” Lowenthal said. 

The company also has a title shared-service center in Carmel, Ind., that Lowenthal said processes about 85% of Manheim’s commercial titles across the country. 

“It’s very efficient because clients send all their titles to one address, and then we verify, validate and reassign them and make sure that they get to the appropriate buyers,” she said. 

She also has a team that facilitates all of the digital transactions for Manheim Express “and again … we’re really leaning into our clients, allowing them to purchase remotely and across much bigger market areas than they did before.”