The Auto Care Association announced a strategic partnership with Integrate Data Facts (IDF), a Michigan-based firm dedicated to producing market intelligence and guiding decision-making for the automotive aftermarket by finding, researching and integrating challenging data sets for Latin American markets.

Together, the Auto Care Association and IDF will accelerate the speed of acquiring Latin American market data and the availability of that data to auto care industry members seeking to explore new markets, the association said.

The partnership builds on a 10-year relationship between the association and IDF which has provided the iLatin American data in the Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard (ACES) through the Vehicle Configuration Database (VCdb).

The association said data standards are the most effective way for automotive aftermarket companies to communicate with their trading partners – ensuring the right part gets to the right place, at the right time. The partnership will enable more expansion and enhancement of the data, including availability of that data to in-region partners. The association said there are benefits to the adopters of standards in the North American as well. Those include:

• The removal of duplicated communication and distribution efforts;
• Reduction in costs and time resources;
• Lower supply chain costs;
• Increased speed to market; and
• Increased sales, operational efficiencies, and reduced returns.

For more information on the Latin American market and data covered through standards, visit autocare.org/vcdb.