So no sooner do I get back from a two week holiday, I fly out to Detroit to attend the AIAG Autotech 2007 Show.  AutoTech is one of two major B2B related Supply Chain Management shows this year, the other major one is Odette which is taking place in Prague in late November.

This year’s event is being held at the new Rock Financial Showplace just outside Detroit. AutoTech is one of the leading B2B related shows for the U.S automotive industry and as GXS has many North American based automotive customers we decided to provide sponsorship to the event.  AutoTech is run by the Automotive Industry Action Group, a body set up to help automotive companies improve how they do business with each other.  In fact the theme of this year’s show is Coopetition, now this is a term that I had never heard of before and therefore I had to do some Googling (other search engines are available!) to find out exactly what it meant! 

In essence it means cooperative competition, a way for competing companies to work together to achieve a common goal.  The best example of coopetition between automotive companies is when they work jointly on a new car or engine programme that will be sold by both companies. From AIAG’s perspective they are encouraging coopetition between North American automotive companies to try and solve complex business problems, improve supply chain efficiencies and help develop global supply chain strategies.

The event itself has two parts, firstly an exhibition area where various B2B software and services vendors can showcase their solutions and secondly a twin track set of presentations delivered by OEMs, suppliers and B2B solution providers.  The aim of these presentations is to provide education in the latest B2B industry trends, provide updates from the various industry standards bodies and allow the OEMs to discuss their latest supply chain strategies.  More importantly it provides a great opportunity for networking and discussing business issues with both automotive companies and B2B solution providers.

I will be attending both days of the event and I will provide further updates and key highlights from each day of AutoTech via this blog.  I will also highlight GXS involvement with the event and hopefully get round to posting up some pictures over the next couple of days.  So hopefully you will find it useful and if you are interested in finding out more information about this event then you can visit the AutoTech 2007 official website