The build record is the most underused asset an OEM owns

For most industrial manufacturers, the most valuable data for the aftermarket is something they already have: the build record of every machine they've shipped. It says exactly what each unit is made of, down to the option, the supplier and the engineering revision. Once the machine leaves the factory, that record mostly sits unused, while dealers, fleets and distributors spend years reconstructing it by hand.

Look at elevators and escalators. About 23 million were in service around the world at the end of 2025, by Otis's estimate, while the whole industry installed about 735,000 new units that year. That's roughly 31 units already running for every new one, and each of them needs service and parts for decades. KONE alone maintains about 1.8 million units, about 12 for every new unit ordered from it in 2025.

The same shape holds across industrial equipment, from cranes and fire apparatus to airport ground equipment and HVAC systems: a modest stream of new units each year, feeding a much larger population of machines that stay in service for decades. Every one of those machines will need parts, and every one was built to a specific record.

A bill of materials for a single unit captures things no one else can see from the outside.

• The configuration. Which of the options the buyer chose: the axle package, the hydraulic circuit, the control system, the lighting.
• The supplier behind each component. Two units built a month apart can carry the same valve from two different makers.
• The engineering revision. Which version of a part was current on the day that unit came off the line.
• The structure. Which parts belong to which assemblies, and which kits a repair will need.

Dealers, independent shops, distributors and fleets all try to rebuild that knowledge. They read worn tags, call the factory, compare photos and keep their own notes. The OEM is the only party that holds the original.

If the record is that valuable, why does so little of it reach the aftermarket? Three reasons, all of them understandable.

1. It's written for production. Internal codes, abbreviations, raw materials, weldments and planning-only assemblies make sense on the plant floor and nowhere else.
2. Nobody owns it after the sale. Engineering moves on to the next model, and the parts organization works from its own catalog, built separately.
3. Translating it was too expensive. Turning each line into a part a customer can order took expert judgment, one line at a time. Until recently, that only made sense for the popular models. Our perspective on how AI changed the economics of manufacturing data goes into why that's no longer true.

The exact part for each unit. When the catalog starts from the build record, a lookup by serial number or VIN returns the parts that specific machine was built with. The counter stops choosing between variants on a product-line page.

A catalog that keeps up. Engineering changes already flow through the factory's systems. When the catalog is built from the same record, each change can reach the parts catalog when it happens, instead of at the next catalog release.

Demand you can trace to the machine. When every search and order starts from a specific unit, an OEM can see which components wear first on machines from a particular build period or application, and act on it: stock ahead, build a kit, send a pattern back to engineering.

The build record grows by one complete unit with every machine that ships. Each correction a parts expert makes improves the catalog built on top of it. And because it starts from the OEM's own data, every answer can be traced to its source, something no catalog assembled from the outside can offer.

Used this way, the build record becomes the foundation of an aftermarket business the OEM can own, for every machine it has ever built.