SupplySolution Inc., a supply-chain software vendor whose customers include 10 of the largest automotive-industry suppliers and more than 700 smaller ones, said Thursday that it will provide supply-chain infrastructure software to Covisint LLC, the trading exchange founded by DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and General Motors.

SupplySolution and Covisint also say they will jointly develop supply-chain execution applications that may include real-time ordering, planning, and logistics software. Under the agreement, SupplySolution's i-Supply Service, i-GetIt, and Global Infrastructure products will be used to create an integration infrastructure, or hub, that will let suppliers and automakers use their existing supply-chain management, customer-relationship management, and enterprise resource planning applications to do real-time business with one another via Covisint.

Chris Steele, Covisint's supply-chain lead, says the selection of SupplySolution's software is the first of many steps to implement Covisint's best-of-breed supply-chain strategy, which will support many software products used by automakers and suppliers to manage inventory and supply chains. SupplySolution president and CEO Chris Moritz says his company's offerings pull information from any system, including legacy systems, over the Internet and translates it into the format understood by any other Internet-enabled business system. The system also lets suppliers who can't afford an expensive business-to-business infrastructure do real-time business using only a browser. "We have built products that allow any-to-any transactions without someone saying you have to buy all this hardware and software before you get any return," he says. Steele says SupplySolution's offerings provide measurable reduction in inventory and associated costs within 90 days.

SupplySolution's offerings will be available immediately to all Covisint customers on a subscription basis. Pricing was not disclosed. Current SupplySolution customers involved in the auto industry will be able to join Covisint either immediately or at their contract anniversary dates.