Manufacture this

In Western Europe, the automobile business is becoming ever more intertwined with  e-business. According to e-business market-research group Itelligence's sales director for southern Poland, Jerzy Kopiec, 98 percent of Western European automotive-related companies do some business on the web. That's a better rate than any industry save one: IT.

At a recent conference on e-business in the automotive industry, Kopiec and other experts taking part in the conference underlined the advantages of e-business, and complained about the backwardness of  Poland's automotive sector. Many companies still lack even a broadband internet connection or use relatively old applications in order to run their e-businesses. Moreover, a measly four percent of all transactions are closed online, so the importance of so-called 'online submarkets' in Poland - such as the internet market for cars - is still small.

Kopiec believes that the solution to Poland's e-business woes could be to embrace what he calls 'e-manufacturing'. That means not only the use of electronics and information technologies on the assembly line, but also throughout the supply chain.

According to Kopiec, e-manufacturing allows a company to gain a certain technological advantage over the competition, making the company much more attractive to its potential clients and business partners.