AIAG Metrology Standard Enables Seamless Data Exchange

New Standard Could Save Auto Industry Millions of Dollars and Slash OEM Product Development Times

DETROIT, June 7 -- The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) is developing a metrology standard that enables the seamless exchange of quality measurement information between disparate and proprietary gages and reporting tools. AIAG showcased the standard's capability in a live demonstration today at the Quality Expo Detroit Conference in Novi, Mich.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040719/DEM007LOGO )

Automotive manufacturers and suppliers lose millions of dollars and weeks of product development time from the lack of interoperability with proprietary quality data collection solutions. The lack of interoperability forces some companies to integrate data from as many as 1,500 different data formats.

AIAG's open, non-proprietary standard is based on XML and aims to help companies recover some of these costs, wasted time and resources in data integration. With this standard, waste and complexity will be eliminated from the supply chain, reducing the 1,500 data formats to one single open reporting format. And gages will be able to exchange variable, attribute and binary data used in Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA) studies to different reporting tools.

Planned for release in June, the standard is being developed by the AIAG Metrology Interoperability Project Team (MIPT) Metrology Quality Measurement (MEQM) Work Group. Members include representatives from DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., ABB, ASI Datamyte, Boeing, Caterpillar, Cummins, Faro, General Electric, Hexagon Metrology, Intel, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Mahr, Minitab, Mitutoyo, Perceptron, Pratt & Whitney, Q-DAS Timken, UGS and Zeiss.

Founded in 1982, AIAG is headquartered in the metro Detroit area. Its member companies include North American, European and Asia-Pacific OEMs and suppliers to the automotive industry with combined annual sales of more than $850 billion. A not-for-profit association, AIAG's primary goals are to reduce cost and complexity within the automotive supply chain and to improve speed to market, product quality, employee health-and-safety and the environment. Additional information is available on the Internet at http://www.aiag.org/ .

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040719/DEM007LOGO
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com