Automotive-industry groups around the world will be able collaborate and communicate more easily with a recently released strategic memorandum of understanding. The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) and Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) jointly signed the memorandum with the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers Association (JAMA), the Japanese Automotive Parts Industry Association (JAPIA) and ODETTE, a European automotive association. Together, the organizations will build a global Joint Automotive Data Model (JADM) that will form the foundation for common, consistent business vocabularies at the data level, and still allow the various business domains to retain their existing infrastructures and processes.

JADM will include a set of consistent international standards to ensure the seamless flow of electronic data in the worldwide supply chain. This sharing of information will reduce cost, enable faster and more efficient implementations, and eliminate waste in the manufacturing, supply-chain and retail-distribution segments of the automotive industry.

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