Latitude Consulting Group Outlines Unfilled e-Business Needs

Auto-e Conference Highlights IT and Product Lifecycle Management

TROY, Mich., May 25 -- Latitude Consulting Group, Inc., an e- business consultancy, attended this year's Auto-e Conference hosted by University of Michigan Engineering Center for Professional Development. The conference was held at the Management Education Center in the Troy's business district, near several automotive technology centers.

The annual Auto-e Conference covers information technologies in the automotive industry. Topics discussed this year included, how CIOs can identify and implement enabling technologies to deliver on the promises of product lifecycle management (PLM), build-to-order, modularity, open architectures, the 72-hour car and global car design.

"Attending conferences like Auto-e provides invaluable insight into unfulfilled e-business needs in the automotive industry," said, Latitude President, Jeff Walter. "One theme this year was addressing the challenges associated with PLM and how e-business technologies enable better cradle-to- grave management of products while capturing important data for the next generation of products."

Latitude recommends web-based applications as one enabling technology for collaboration and data capture during a product's lifecycle. PLM portals can decrease costs while providing high levels of security, commonality, and access to product data and business applications.

Views in a PLM portal can be customized for different stakeholders and for various applications such as, product design, manufacturing and customer service. By providing common, integrated access to data and an ability to refine data-capture to specific part numbers, an automotive company can gain several efficiencies:

* Better forecasting of demand through all phases of a product's lifecycle, from introduction through maturity

* Pinpoint product defects to specific VINs to minimize the scope of recalls

* Improve the development of next generation products with real-world, real-time data

About Latitude Consulting Group

Latitude Consulting Group, Inc., formerly a division of Commerce One, is a leading e-business and technology consulting firm specializing in development and deployment of digital demand chain solutions. From the factory floor to the point-of-sale, Latitude Consulting Group has provided digital demand chain solutions to Fortune 100 companies in the automotive, oil & gas, and software industries. With headquarters in Saline, Michigan, Latitude Consulting Group can be reached at 888-577-2797 x601 or via http://www.latitudeconsultinggroup.com/