Feb. 7, 2014—Version 3.0 of its Internet Parts Ordering (IPO) standard has been released by the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA), the group announced Thursday.

Improvements have been made to the shipment and confirmation documents, as well as the addition of an invoice document. IPO version 3.0 serves as a functional replacement for Electronic Document Exchange (EDI) or a near-real time complement to existing EDI document exchange.

IPO was developed specifically to address the requirements of order inquiry, purchase order, ship notification and invoicing in the automotive supply chain regardless of the number of line items or shipping points.

“Split shipments, backorders, product replacement and drop shipments are just a few of the complications that automotive special orders and stock orders involve,” said Scott Luckett, CIO of AAIA. “The IPO web services were defined in this latest version to account for all these complexities and enable end-to-end automation of the order cycle and payment reconciliation. Trading partners who invest in IPO-enabled ordering processes will realize immediate ROI in time and labor savings.”

The document is available for free download online.