The European Commission takes all sorts of initiatives to help Small- and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) better develop their businesses. This project is an initiative to help SMEs in their digital communication with customers and suppliers.

The automotive sector is one of the most important of the European economy, and very SME-intensive. Yet, while the SMEs are a hefty part of it, large obstacles remain to these organizations to fully participate in the industry, one of these being the existence of several mostly incompatible ICT systems in the sector’s supply chain. An SME that wishes to collaborate with larger manufactures will often be forced to maintain several such systems, an effort that needlessly raises costs and reduces logistical flexibility.

The Auto-Gration project is aimed at providing a technical assistance service, on the basis a tender issued by DG Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission, by developing an analysis study, an interoperability reference architecture and a set of pilot prototypes for the harmonisation of business processes and data exchange architectures and standards, at European or international level, within the automotive sector, to facilitate the participation of SMEs in global digital supply chains.

Its ultimate objective is to create a favourable environment that will stimulate and enable the uptake of ICT and eBusiness technologies, notably by SMEs, in this highly SME-intensive sector in Europe.

 

Further information can be obtained by contacting Mr. Rutger Devoldere, CLEPA Aftermarket Department, Tel.: +32 2 740 28 43 or visit