http://www.motor.net.au/aanx/

The Australian Automotive Network eXchange (AANX) Project was awarded $105,000 under Round 3 of the ITOL program. The major objective was to create a reliable, secure and well-managed Internet-standards based private network for the Australian automotive industry to provide a platform for conducting domestic and international business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce activities. Key components of the project are:

• The network is based on available Internet technology;
• It is characterised by agreed and standardised service levels;
• The project demonstrates proactive management of trading partner connections; and
• Practices the highest available standards of security and privacy for trading partner transactions and interoperability between multiple service providers.

The network design characteristics were modelled largely on the specification developed by the United States ANX network. The decision for using ANX as a model was motivated by the need to create and maintain international communication and security interoperability in light of the dramatic and continuing globalisation of the automotive industry.

Introduction

The Australian Automotive Network eXchange (AANX) was formed in 1999 as a cooperative project between vehicle manufacturers and suppliers to provide the Australian automotive industry with a single, cost-effective private network to enable online data connectivity between participants for a range of applications.

The project is supported and run by a committee made up of the relevant industry associations: the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), the Federation of Automotive Product Manufacturers (FAPM) and the Motor Trades Association of Australia (MTAA). The four car manufacturers, Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi and Toyota are involved, as are a number of their major suppliers including Air International, PBR, Plexicor and Tenneco Automotive.

Objective

The objective of the AANX project is to create a reliable, secure and well-managed Internet-standards based private network for the Australian automotive industry and its constituents, to provide a platform for conducting domestic and international B2B e-commerce activities.

The automotive industry has traditionally used a large number of legacy computer systems and communication networks with multiple protocols, multiple links and inconsistent service and security levels. These networks often support only one application, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transactions, email or computer aided design (CAD) file exchange, which means two trading partners may have several different electronic links with associated duplication of costs and infrastructure.

Developed since 1999, the AANX has been designed to provide a single, cost effective private network between trading partners. It allows for the timely transmission and exchange of confidential data and business critical messages. The network is accessible to vehicle manufacturers and importers, suppliers, dealers, government and other associated businesses. The AANX provides the technical communication and security infrastructure upon which applications for B2B e-commerce can be built.

The network is based on available Internet technology and is characterised by agreed and standardised service levels, proactive management of trading partner connections, the highest standards of security and privacy for trading partner transactions and interoperability between multiple service providers.

Network Structure

Rather than selecting and endorsing a single provider, AANX gives its connected trading partners a choice of communication service providers to enable greater levels of network redundancy for business critical applications. This decision recognises the need to support interoperability between data networks to benefit users and the communication industry.

The AANX is a multi-provider, virtual private network where the service providers compete for customers, but comply with common service quality requirements, including security. All trading partners share the same physical infrastructure of the AANX. Within this framework, each electronic conversation occurs via a secure, private logical connection between the two trading partners involved.

 

Network Roles

Connect Internet Solutions and Equant provide the communication services for the network. Keytrust, the trading name of Network Designers Australia, act as the certificate authority and vendor for managed IPSec security services. High levels of reliability and performance are essential for business transactions carried out between automotive companies. Connect provides communication carriage and network management for AANX connected trading partners, with the managed service of customer premises equipment facilitating proactive monitoring of trading partner connections.

Equant also acts as a communication carriage and network management service provider for AANX. It carries network traffic over its private network backbone. Equant provides the Exchange Point Operator for AANX, which creates a defined demarcation point between communication service providers.

KeyTrust is the network 's Certificate Authority Services Provider, responsible for the management of all e-security services and the public key infrastructure, the lynchpin of AANX 's overall security system.

KeyTrust provides the AANX network with four key security elements:

Secure Data Transmission

This is achieved through the use of the IPSec protocol operated under the KeyTrust managed services program. IPSec is an industry standard for secure communication over both public and private data networks. In the case of AANX, this is implemented through hardware encryption gateways for permanent connections or client based encryption software for dialup connections, which automatically encrypt and authenticate all transmissions traversing the network.

PKI Digital Certificates

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) based digital certificates are used within the AANX network so all participants can experience a high level of confidence when transacting over the network. This is achieved through the authentication and identification of all parties taking part in any secure communication session.

AANX Community Directory

The AANX Community Directory is the central policy repository used by the security gateways when establishing sessions between trading partners. It contains a 'map' of all participants along with their 'electronic relationships 'and access privileges.

KeyTrust Professional Managed Services

KeyTrust monitors and manages the security gateways on a 24x7 basis through its Secure Network Control Centre in Melbourne.

The AANX overseer 's role is to define and verify the network service levels and certification criteria. This definition includes about 100 information, performance and service level metrics and is based on the ANX specification, which was developed in the United States.

These metrics were established upon certification of each service provider and are monitored to ensure the high level of network characteristics deemed important for critical and confidential business transactions.

Project Lessons

The AANX project covered a specialised area of technological capability that is normally left to information technology and communication experts within each company, but can have significant impact on the competitive standing of each company and the industry as a whole.

Implementing the AANX network enables the local automotive industry to move some of its core business processes online. The AANX has standardised the network and security platform, alleviating the need for bilateral network design and implementation efforts between each new pair of trading partners and each new application. When a critical mass is achieved, the ability to support multiple applications between multiple trading partners over a single network connection will provide ongoing cost benefits to all participants.

The task of developing an agreed standard that could support the industry 's specific application requirements was left to a recognised, respected and non-competitive body accepted by the industry. In this case it was the FCAI which had the support and endorsement of other relevant associations.

The task of implementing this standard and making it available as a product from a number of vendors and service providers (in this case communication carriers) was helped by gaining credibility and support from relevant industry associations, major industry participants and the Federal Government.

Specific business knowledge and understanding of key business processes within the industry was required to determine a suitable solution that had sufficient depth and breadth of capabilities to be useful. Personal networking with a wide range of contacts in the automotive and communication industries was required to reach consensus on the requirements and acquire the necessary goodwill and resources for testing and implementing solutions in the pre-commercial phase.

In the early stages of such a venture, the commercial viability is questionable and delicate, a situation not dissimilar to experiences gained from many other technologically oriented projects and ventures locally and globally. The project needed long term support from participants to achieve its desired outcome.

Benefits for Users

The AANX has moved through several development stages over the last two years, from pilot planning to pre-production and has now formally launched the production network. The final success of the venture will be determined by its ability to provide significant business, cost and revenue benefits to all participants (including its communication carriers and service providers). This is the area that the AANX is most actively pursuing through the enhancement of its network and services in collaboration with participants.

As the network has developed, a number of companies have begun to make use of its capabilities.

Application Case A: Externally Sequenced Parts Delivery (ESPD)

Plexicor and Ford Australia are located within close proximity of each other in Campbellfield, Victoria. Plexicor supports Ford 's vehicle assembly operations with sequenced parts delivery, i.e. parts that need to be ordered and delivered in the sequence of assembled vehicles travelling down the assembly line. This may apply to model specific or colour coded parts, e.g. pre-assembled instrument panels, carpets or coloured body components.

Since the actual sequence of vehicles being assembled is only known after their emergence from the manufacturer 's paint operation, there is an extremely short lead time between notifying the parts supplier of the required order of parts and acquiring those parts for assembly. Multiple assembly points or workstations may have to be supported through delivery of a variety of sequenced parts.

The AANX network supports this operation by providing a single connection, which may have earlier required multiple point-to-point links, and by providing visibility to all concerned of the network status.

According to the Plexicor Communications Network Manager, this capability has alleviated the need to install multiple separate connections when providing support for further parts. It has simplified maintenance and troubleshooting of network connections, leading to a more efficient communication process.

Members of Ford 's Networks and Communications staff add that this solution reduces implementation planning and support requirements because it allows additional assembly line workstations to connect to additional suppliers without adding to communication facilities. It reduces installation costs and it is easily scalable to support future business needs across multiple components and suppliers.

Application Case B: Computer Aided Design and Collaborative Engineering

EDAG Future is an engineering and design company supporting new product development for vehicle manufacturers and suppliers on an outsourced basis. Since all vehicle design and engineering entails heavy use of CAD and engineering capabilities, the product definition is built up as a digital model during the vehicle development process.

Digital parts, subsystems and complete vehicle models are constantly added to and enhanced during the development process. These are transmitted to other participants in the process regularly and frequently to ensure everyone in the design team is working off the latest development status of the design.

This operation, which extends over several months or even years during the design process for each new vehicle model, needs to be supported through significant network bandwidth capacity because CAD files are typically very large. Confidentiality and security of the data is essential during the product development process to prevent access to unauthorised observers.

EDAG uses AANX to work closely with more than one vehicle manufacturer in Australia (Ford, Holden). The AANX network allows EDAG to utilize a single, high bandwidth connection to access all of its major customers online.

The network performance metrics inherent in the AANX specification ensure that interactive and critical applications can be readily supported over this network, something the public Internet with its unpredictable performance characteristics is not able to do. Having a network connection already in place makes it easier for the vehicle manufacturer to do business with EDAG, significantly improving the lead time in the start-up of new development programs and enhancing its standing against potential competitors.

The AANX network is geared towards supporting outsourced and shared product development processes between vehicle manufacturers and their major suppliers and development service providers, a preferred mode of operation the global automotive industry is moving to. The network metrics have been specified to match the stringent application performance requirements, and the network capacity is scalable up to very large bandwidths to facilitate this process.

The major challenge remaining for this application case is to procure higher capacity network connections at lower costs to prevent the chosen best practice development mode of operation being stifled by unsustainable network communication costs.

Application Case C: New Generation Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Messaging Network

The automotive industry has been a very active user of EDI for many years. An estimated 80 to 90 per cent of suppliers to the Australian vehicle manufacturers are recipients or users of EDI. The existing EDI network has been in operation since the late 1980s, well before IP networks and protocols became commonplace.

The automotive industry required an upgrade path from the existing legacy network to an updated network platform. The AANX network provided this platform by combining high reliability, security and authentication and compliance with up-to-date IP network standards in one package.

During 2001 a comprehensive testing and evaluation process was undertaken by Robert Bosch Australia, PBR, Toyota and a number of other suppliers. EDI messages were sent and received over the AANX network, as well as the incumbent legacy EDI network. EDI message formats and content were left untouched. The testing process was completed to the full satisfaction of all participants.

Connect Internet Solutions acts as an Application Service Provider for AANX, supplying the EDI message mailboxes for AANX trading partners and the interconnect to the legacy network. Connect also handled the inflight translation between trading partners' in-house systems and the standardised ANSI and EDIFACT messaging formats. This alleviates the need for trading partners to have this capability and required expertise in-house.

The new AANXedi service is now in production and trading partners have begun to migrate their EDI messaging to this new platform. This step provides significant cost savings over the previous service and has allowed the sharing of a single communication access line for multiple applications (e.g.ESPD and CAD). It provides security and authentication, essential for commercially binding transactions like EDI messaging, and puts in place a network and security platform to facilitate future migration to new messaging formats and content (e.g.XML).

Future

The user experiences from the above case studies prove that the primary objectives for implementing the AANX network have been fulfilled by providing a secure, reliable and well-managed communication network for the Australian automotive industry. However, further work is required to enhance the value of this network for each participant and for the Australian automotive industry as a whole. The forthcoming challenges for this network require:

The addition of more applications

The addition of applications is largely driven by the major AANX trading partners (manufacturers, large suppliers) but can be complemented by external application service providers, where such applications can add value to the industry.

The addition of more trading partners

This in itself will increase the value of the network for every participant. As more groups join the network, the more useful it becomes for everyone. The AANX is engaged in an active marketing and education campaign to spread better understanding of the network and its benefits to the supplier community. It works with these suppliers to establish their individual business cases and justification for a connection to the network.

The addition of enhanced network capabilities

Other capabilities such as continuous monitoring of network performance, service levels, network redundancy, and failsafe operations for critical business processes is in progress in response to and anticipation of future trading partner needs.

Connecting to relevant overseas automotive networks

Close contacts are in place with the relevant international parties to allow AANX to move forward at the right time.

Reducing connectivity costs

The AANX is aiming to reduce connectivity costs or at least maintain these costs at a stable level while increasing network bandwidth. New network access technologies like broadband DSL and fibre are being explored to provide higher capacity access at lower cost. In the long term, the AANX aims to become part of the global GNX initiative, which began with ANX in the North American automotive industry. Projects equivalent to the AANX are under way in Europe (ENX), Japan (JNX) and Korea (KNX), which jointly aim to provide a backbone of connectivity across the global automotive industry.