It Isn't Covisint

Automotive Industries, May, 2001 by Lora J. Bingham

ArvinMeritor recently held a mock e-auction for the press -- with an in-house system unrelated to Covisint. Jeffery Stoner, ArvinMeritor's VP of procurement, describes the auction software, provided by BayBuilders, as a self-service model. "You buy a license to have software on your desktop, just like you do for Microsoft. They provide the site, a vehicle to do the auction, but you're in control of the process." The Covisint model is an auction run by an outside company.

So why would a supplier want to run its own e-auction? "It's a business decision," says Stoner. "What you're putting into it cost-wise and what you get out of it." For example, ArvinMeritor recently held an e-auction for contract services. It didn't need outside help to set up the auction and run it. But Stoner cautions that both e-auction models are valid. "It's just another tool," he explains. "Freemarkets has two models, too. And both for the same purpose: e-auctions. That is very telling. There is a need out there."

The BayBuilders' software has some interesting features. During the mock e-auction, participants could watch as the bids came in. They knew which bid was theirs and what their competitors were bidding. "You can structure e-auctions to fit your needs," says Stoner. "You can structure it so that the bids appear as ranks. You can structure it so they can't see any prices at all. That's what makes it such a neat, flexible tool."

But according to Stoner, the real benefits are in the supply chain management. "It forces us and everyone we're dealing with to be more efficient. It's all about efficiency. That's where this thing is going."