Extranets Roll Automakers move processes to Net
By Clinton Wilder September 27, 1999
About 40% of new-car buyers use the Internet in some way when they purchase a car, which is why most of the E-business attention in the auto industry has focused on the consumer and retail side. But a growing number of car
companies are now working to move their back-end, manufacturer-to-dealer business processes to the Internet.
In the next several weeks, the North American operations of Mazda and Porsche are rolling out extranet systems, which operate using Java, to their dealers. Both auto manufacturers are replacing PC-to-mainframe, batch-processing systems with IP applications that leverage their legacy applications and databases. The goal is simple: easier and faster information flow.
"You've got to get information to the retail point as quickly as possible," says John Jacobs, manager of dealer and field systems for Porsche Cars North America Inc. in Atlanta. "You can't wait 90 days to ship updated CDs or diskettes. The answers should be at the dealers' fingertips."
Porsche is testing a Java extranet at seven dealerships, and it plans to roll out the system to all 206 dealers in North America by next spring. Porsche is working with Deloitte Consulting to implement a system based on Jacada Inc.'s Jacada for Java, a Web application-hosting platform for IBM AS/400 environments. Jacobs headed the implementation of a similar system last year at his former employer, Saab Cars USA.
Mazda is further along with a similar extranet; it has 15 test sites and plans to roll out the system to its 764 U.S. dealerships by the end of this month.
The company is using IBM for technology, development, and training. Called eMDCS (Mazda Dealer Communication System), the system runs on IBM's Windows NT-based WebSphere application server, which connects to Mazda's System/390 mainframe with IBM's MQSeries middleware.
The key applications are a parts-availability function that queries regional distribution-center inventories, and a vehicle locator that checks other dealers' fleets for possible trades. The system replicates 17 DB2 database tables on the Web server. Says Steve Hays, Java development project manager for Mazda North American Operations in Irvine, Calif., "We didn't want to change any of the back-end processes."
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