Pictures and parts: Delivering an automated automotive parts catalog

The paper describes a classic challenge in business technology-keeping (or expanding) a market in light of changing demands and product technologies. Threatened by other firms in the microfiche publishing business and by new entrants offering catalog data bases, Bell & Howell reevaluated its entire approach to the automotive parts catalog business. In the process the company discovered how a properly conceived system could provide significant efficiency improvements in automobile repair operations. Much of the hardware needed for the system was ‘off the shelf’. As in many cases of technological development, initial expectations about what the new technology could offer were incorrect. The heart of the story is the company’s persistent and iterative efforts to understand its customers’ activities and to offer a system that could be tailored to, and justified in, the customers business environment.