BOC has linked to its Web site telemetry systems attached to gas tanks at 1,000 customer sites. The systems measure the level, flow and temperature of the gases contained in those tanks. These companies are chasing the efficiencies demonstrated by advanced e-commerce operations elsewhere, particularly in the automotive sector. The trading community is growing at a rate of one company per day, says Doug Buchanan, one of the project's primary champions as senior IS specialist at steel maker Dofasco Inc., a major supplier to General Motors, Ford Motor and DaimlerChrysler. There are now 235 active ANX members, and 180 more are in the process of signing up, he says.
Pilot projects are under way in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom.
A pilot is also planned for Korea, and the major challenge next year is to link these regional ANX pilots into the North American ANX to form a global network service. ANX is also crossing into other industries. Eighty-one percent of IT managers at manufacturing companies say they have a Web site, while 92 percent have an intranet. More than 41 percent say they're likely to let outsiders tap into internal databases via extranets in the near future. And 67 percent collaborate with partners on product design over the Web.