EBE announced its partnership with TruckOp.com to offer a combined solution aimed at reducing the costs of heavy-duty truck and trailer parts for carriers and improving the management and control of these purchases.

Combined with EBE’s Ships workflow solutions, purchase orders for ordered parts will automatically be created, sent to the supplier and integrated to the carrier’s accounting system for better cost control and management of these purchases.

TruckOp.com is a subscription based portal providing its members visibility to actual invoiced pricing, by supplier, of truck and trailer parts. The visibility to this pricing offers stronger negotiating power with carriers' local suppliers as well as cost effective purchasing alternatives.

The combined solution provides asset based carriers the ability to create a PO for every part prior to, or at the time of, an order is placed. The PO, is then electronically sent to the supplier as well as the carrier's accounts payable workflow solution where integration to the accounting and vehicle maintenance solutions occur.

The system offers more control and transparency to these purchases through an audit trail, holds suppliers accountable for agreed upon pricing and ensures that the relationships between buyers and suppliers are the most cost effective.

From an operational perspective, the combined solution works as follows. A buyer logs into TruckOp.com via an internet browser. A search is conducted for the specific part which then generates a results list of the suppliers and actual pricing for which the part was previously sold.

The value of having transparency to the actual invoiced price, postures the buyer to either negotiate with their local dealer more aggressively, or purchase the part from the supplier listed through TruckOp.com. Once the price is agreed upon, the buyer clicks on the "create PO icon".

Information is then auto-populated in the PO including the supplier's contact information, the buyers "ship to" address and the negotiated pricing and quantity of the purchased item(s).

The system then emails the PO to the supplier and imports the PO into the carrier’s account payable workflow. Once in workflow, the information can be integrated into the carrier’s vehicle maintenance and accounting solutions. When the invoice is received, it is then validated and processed for payment through the carrier’s accounts payable system and stored in the carrier’s imaging system.