This topic assumes you are familiar with the basic Showroom new vehicle (price book vehicle) quotation process and with associated vehicle stockbooks operations.
The new vehicle quotation process produces quotes for two categories of vehicle:
A non-stock vehicle, that is, a vehicle ordered from the factory (a price book vehicle)
A vehicle already held in the dealer's stock
CESAR is used when specifying a non-stock vehicle (a price book vehicle).
CESAR, or Common European Sales Application Re-engineering, is Mercedes-Benz's database for configuration and ordering new vehicles. All markets and dealerships around the world can use it to:
Configure new vehicles to an exact customer specification
Place factory wholesale orders
Track orders through the manufacturing stages
Enquire about dealer stock available to the dealer network in a given market place
A Mercedes-Benz internet site, named CESAR, provides access to the CESAR database. The Autoline showroom module links to the CESAR internet site via a secure connection. Additionally, Autoline's vehicle stock books module links to CESAR.
New vehicle quotation consists of:
The dealer/salesman and the customer agree broad customer needs
The dealer/salesman runs Autoline's showroom module, enabling the identification of the customer and product group
If a vehicle ordered from the factory (a price book vehicle) is chosen, the CESAR process continues. Otherwise, a vehicle already held in the dealer's stock may be assigned to the order in standard Showroom and the CESAR process does not apply.
The dealer/salesman specifies the vehicle's configuration in CESAR. This task itself consists of:
Autoline Showroom links to CESAR
The salesman specifies the vehicle using CESAR
CESAR validates the selected vehicle configuration
Autoline downloads the valid configuration from CESAR as wholesale offer data to Showroom
Tip: These four CESAR process steps are explained in more detail in the new vehicle quotation process and can be repeated to change the offer if required.
On return from CESAR, Autoline places you at an appropriate point in the new vehicle quotation process
The dealer/salesman and customer finalise the retail offer, agreeing dealer fitted options, trade in, and so on.
The dealer/salesman accepts the customer order into Autoline's vehicle stock books (VSB) module
The order, including customer data, is uploaded to CESAR, the wholesale offer being automatically turned into a wholesale order
Autoline VSB automatically downloads the order confirmation data, including order status information, from CESAR
Note: Wholesale offer data includes end-customer and dealer price, and information about any stock vehicle reservation.
CESAR relies on Autoline franchise data being kept synchronized with franchise data held on CESAR. The vehicle specification sent back from CESAR to Autoline is validated against franchise data held in Autoline. Any inconsistencies are reported, along with a request to update Autoline franchise data from CESAR.
If any factory options downloaded from CESAR are unknown to Autoline franchise data (because CESAR has newer data), they are still imported into the configuration in Autoline. However, no warning is displayed that they do not currently exist in franchise data.
For this reason, you should regularly update your Autoline database from CESAR franchise data at frequency/intervals confirmed by Mercedes-Benz.
The franchise data for Mercedes-Benz is normally supplied in MDPLUS format. That data contains the models and national type details for the franchise, including all factory options, prices and so on. For this functionality to work, franchise data held on Autoline must be updated and kept in synchronization with the MDPLUS franchise data held on CESAR. An import program is available through Manufacturer Systems that is used to update franchise data within Autoline to maintain this.
Note: Although we do support options not being available within franchise data, the national types are required in Autoline.
To access CESAR, Autoline requires Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.50 or later to be installed.
Before you use CESAR, you must ensure that the Autoline system is set up . This is normally carried out by, or on advice from, a Kerridge consultant.
