News Release

For Immediate Release
AAIA-10-01

For more information, contact Rich White, (301) 654-6664.

AAIA's i·SHOP Standards are Released, Tested and AAPEX Show-Ready
Version 1.0 of industry standard released

BETHESDA, MD - October 4, 2001 - The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) announced today that automotive repair shop equipment and computer systems built to the i·SHOP standard version 1.0 are fully tested and ready for demonstration at the Automotive Aftermarket Products Exposition (AAPEX) show, October 30 - November 2 in Las Vegas.

"The specification released on July 30 has been engineered into several products that will be on display at AAPEX. Those products have been fully tested and deemed show-ready", said Scott Luckett, AAIA senior director of information technology.

i·SHOP is an open industry standard developed under the direction of the AAIA Electronic Commerce Committee. i·SHOP enables PC-based shop equipment and systems from a wide variety of vendors to be combined to form an integrated repair shop network. i·SHOP eliminates the need to re-enter information about the customer, the work order and the vehicle multiple times, as is the case today. As i·SHOP is engineered into vehicle diagnostic and repair equipment, shop management software, and information servers, technicians will become more productive and shops will become more profitable.

The specification released this summer was a product of the Shop Integration Task Force - a technical team comprised of representatives from ALLDATA, Canadian Tire, Hunter Engineering, Mitchell1, Snap-on, SPX, Vetronix and BayMaster. "i·SHOP represents an unprecedented level of cooperation between competitors to create a standard that allows their products to play together and better serve the needs of their customers," said Luckett.

The i·SHOP Specification and Software Developers Kit can be licensed to any equipment or systems company serving the vehicle service industry. In addition to the charter participants, several other companies have licensed the i·SHOP specification. They include Anderson BDG, Autologic, Beissbarth, Delphi Automotive Systems, Midtronics, Ontool, and Quality Design Systems.

The future state of the vehicle service industry will be on display at AAPEX 2001 in Sands booth 3067. Products and systems conforming to the i·SHOP standard will be interconnected in the same way they would be in a shop and demonstrated at the AAPEX show. At the heart of the demonstration network will be a first-of-its-kind i·SHOP shop management application: "Powered by BayMaster."

Additional information about i·SHOP and a technical overview are available from the web site at www.ishopstandards.org.

The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) is a Bethesda, Md.-based association whose member companies manufacture, distribute and sell motor vehicle parts, accessories, tools, equipment, materials and supplies. The organization is comprised of manufacturers, distributors, jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, manufacturer's representatives and other companies doing business in the automotive aftermarket. AAIA formerly served the automotive aftermarket as ASIA and APAA.