"We are seeing traction for these new standards within the insurance segment; however, implementation within the repairer segment is lagging," said Fred Iantorno, CIECA's executive director.

In the repair shop, the EMS (Estimating to Management System Standard) is the most widely used standard in the industry.  However, the EMS standard is from before the turn of the century.  Today's XML standards address the new requirements for data exchange in the industry.  Today's environment requires more data than is contained in the EMS.  This causes shops to manually enter data (not in the EMS) into, for example, status reporting, car rental, auto glass, and part-procurement systems.

"Manually entered data means extra cost to everyone. Implementing these XML standards within the repair shop will make everyone more efficient and will save the industry money," Iantorno said.

CIECA publishes two XML releases annually.  New messages are added and existing messages are enhanced or modified as a result of the changing needs of the industry.  CIECA has also published a road map of its XML messages, which is available on its Web site.