Association Offers Free Product Data Conversion Software

The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) has released a free, open-source software utility that converts part number interchange data into the Product Information Exchange Standard (PIES) format.

The PIES Interchange Transformation Utility accepts interchange data in a flat-file (spreadsheet) format and converts it to the latest version of (PIES) XML. The conversion of data in this way is a critical component in the proliferation of electronic cataloguing that is being used increasingly by auto parts stores. AAIA chose to distribute the utility at no cost and in an open-source manner so that software developers throughout the industry could springboard off this tool to develop more robust PIES mapping and conversion tools. No further upgrades or functionality are planned by AAIA for the utility, but the source code is freely available under the GNU Open-Source license agreement.