The automotive industry is subject to the same evolution as the rest of the economy. Search for lower implementation costs of messaging technologies – either by the OEMs or suppliers - higher levels of reactivity and integration with new Internet-based ways of doing business are of concerns for this industry. For all these reasons, XML is the emerging support technology. But, in order to be done efficiently, it requires a strong basis.

The Odette XML project group worked in co-operation with its North American conterpart from the AIAG (the Automotive Industry Action Group) on the definition of a consistent and comprehensive development procedure.

The aim was to provide a solution, letting people who know the business, but not modelling techniques, to express themselves and benefit from this technology. The right solution defined a single, strict path from UML modelling –which business people can understand – to automatic translation to XML.

The work was split in different stages:

	Definition of unique UML modelling rules. This ensures that no matter what the topic, the modelling approach will always be the same.
	Definition of a subset of a standard exchange format (XMI). The point here is to let end-users choose whatever tools they wish. This XMI subset was proof-read by a member of the OMG.
	Definition of a unique transformation rule of the modelling into XSD. This guarantees, that whatever the tool, the generated XSD will always be the same.
	As the Open Applications Group is an acknowledged standardisation body, some guidelines for mapping the existing “words” to those of OAGi is provided.

Also, as part of the common work, a Joint Automotive Data Model (JADM) has been made available under this tool-neutral XMI format.

Moreover, having worked at an early stage with software vendors, there are already some tools available to implement the standard.

All this paves the way for the easy and consistent creation of automotive industry XML messages, whether for B2B applications or companies’ internal purposes.

More info on Odette XML Editor