Knowledge for the workshop

Knowledge for the workshop

Automotive industry: The EBV will soon be celebrating its 25th birthday. A lot has happened since the beginning...

Rainer Wimmer: That's right, today almost 5,000 companies use the EBV to prepare reports. It has been part of the modern online platform “Automotive Services” since 2017. The EBV software solution is the clear No. 1 in the area of ​​§57a assessments in Austria in terms of the number of customers and reports prepared per year. The long-standing loyalty of our customers is reflected in the fact that at peak times throughout Austria an appraisal is completed with the EBV approximately every 1.2 seconds (!). The bottom line is that several million reports are transmitted from the EBV to the ZBD every year.

You have been heading the Automotive Services division since 2019. How has the digital offering for automotive businesses developed since then?

In addition to the free basic version of EBV, many customers use our additional software solutions such as the analysis modules and §57a services for quality assurance. This allows companies to evaluate their report data according to various criteria and thus protect themselves from unpleasant surprises during audits. Even accidental violations of §57a companies can have far-reaching consequences.

What help with legal questions is there for §57a companies?

The catalog of defects, in particular, ensures legal certainty in the context of §57a assessments as a comprehensive aid for the assessors. This is created by the Federal Vehicle Technology Guild in collaboration with ÖAMTC, ARBÖ, the trade association of the vehicle industry as well as representatives of the BMK and the state governments, as well as experts from the private sector, and is continuously adapted to the legal provisions. The digital reference work with an interactive table of contents and full-text search is technically connected to the EBV. Suggestions can be sent directly to the editorial team using a feedback button. Because that is the basic idea of ​​the catalog of defects: knowledge for practice!

What will 2023 bring in the area of ​​§57a?

With the publication of the 10th amendment to the PBStV, there will be changes to the interface to the ZBD from February 2023 and thus also adjustments to the EBV. Our team has been working hard on the implementation over the last few weeks, and we are currently putting the innovations through their paces. Another point concerns the topic of on-board fuel consumption monitoring, or OBFCM for short. Since January 1, 2021, newly registered vehicles in classes M1 and N1 Group I must be equipped with an OBFCM device. For these vehicles, §57a KFG assessment centers will in future be obliged to regularly read out the consumption data and send it to authorities specified by the EU. In Austria, the regulation will come into force in mid-May 2023. Together with device manufacturers and Workshop-Net, we have developed a simple solution that is based on our new software module “Werkstatt Connect” (WSC). This strengthens communication between the different devices in the workshop and the existing applications in automotive services. This means that a digital test book can later be implemented, for example. We will inform the readers of the automotive industry and our customers about this in a timely manner.

Since September of this year you have also taken over the management of the Automotive Academy. What have you planned for your new role?

ÖWV owner and managing director Thomas Letz decided to bundle the §57a topics and appoint me as leader. The Automotive Academy is based on a long-standing partnership with the Vienna Vehicle Technology Guild. In our training rooms at the new mobility campus of the Vienna Vehicle Technology Guild, we provide our course participants with a first-class team of recognized experts for training and further education. Our goal is to make the Automotive Academy the most important competence center for imparting technical qualifications in the field of automotive technology with a training focus on §57a assessments. We want to achieve this with a quality offensive, of which I can give an example: As part of the multi-day basic training on §57a, we consciously attach importance to small group sizes in the technical units. How do we implement this? For course groups of around 25 people, the technical units are trained by three specialist teachers. The participants are divided into small groups of around eight people each.

Is it worth incurring additional costs for this?

Our participants appreciate the combination of small group size, state-of-the-art facilities, included meals during breaks and discounted parking. Hundreds of satisfied course participants every year encourage us in what we do; their feedback is the most important indicator of our work. In addition, we undergo external quality tests such as the certification process for CERT NÖ, which we have successfully passed. This confirms that as a training and further education organization we pursue systematic quality development.

What can you look forward to in the 2023 courses?

In addition to the face-to-face events, we are also sticking to our webinars. We also want to expand our range of courses. This year we offered practical training for EBV users as well as training for vehicle class L for the first time. Discussions are currently underway with potential new trainers for further courses. However, I don't want to reveal too much about that at this point (laughs). A current overview of our course offerings for 2023 can be found on our website and new courses will of course be continually added.

You can reach the Automotive Services team at+43 1 890 30 80

Information about the course offerings can be found at https://akademie.automotive.at/