BETHESDA, Md. — The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) announced the opening of a new collaborative Web portal. This new service is available to test compliance with the AAIA Internet Parts Ordering (IPO) standard.
The association thanks American Remanufactures Inc. (ARI) for its generosity and vision in funding the development of an important supply chain enabler for the industry. The IPO Portal was designed and developed in partnership with Prescient Technology Inc. (PTI), specialists in business and systems integration in the automotive aftermarket.
IPO is the industry standard for emergency and replenishment purchase order transactions, quotes, order acknowledgements and shipment notices. Solutions that support the IPO standard reuse the same interface to communicate with all compliant trading partners.
IPO Portal services are available to aftermarket suppliers and their trading partners to test compliance with the standard. These services introduce new opportunities for suppliers by testing their implementations prior to generating live orders. Companies can elect to self-test as a buyer or seller and/or participate in computer monitored end-to-end testing with actual trading partners. Each test routine provides private, third-party analysis of the exchange to facilitate fast supply chain integration without the usual “finger-pointing.” This is an integral step to the long-term goal of industry-wide business-to-business supply chain communications.
Scott Luckett, AAIA vice president for technology standards and solutions explained, “We owe a debt of gratitude to ARI who had the foresight to see the importance and need of promoting IPO and made a very wise investment in the testing facility on behalf of the future of our industry.”
“ARI has participated in all phases of IPO development,” said Ed Wolff, ARI vice president and CIO. “We see IPO as a win-win for aftermarket suppliers and their trading partners, providing a single standard for common supply chain transactions. Our collaboration with Prescient Technologies helped us deliver an important tool to fast track our IPO implementations, providing a cost effective support solution in record-breaking time.”
Joe Register, PTI president and CEO said, “Hats-off to ARI for recognizing the need to sponsor development of a creative industry solution to solve implementation and support problems common in the adoption of industry standards. Our IPO Portal is a great example of collaborative design delivering an industry specific solution for supply chain integration.”
For more information about IPO and the new Web portal, visit www.ipoportal.com.
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