Emetra and Commodities Management Exchange (cmXchange) have agreed to collaborate on electronic commerce in nonferrous metals by integrating their physical trading platforms and enabling automotive manufacturers and their suppliers to initiate reverse auctions. Emetra operates a physical metals e-commerce platform while cmXchange focuses on e-commerce services for buyers of nonferrous, ferrous and platinum group metals.

"Coupling the metals expertise of Emetra and cmXchange is a step toward offering a total commodity management solution for the auto industry's metals requirements,'' suggests A. Demetrius Brown, chief executive of the Chicago-based cmXchange. The major activity on cmXchange's site has been procurement for Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler. London-based Emetra's active membership trades in large volumes of nonferrous metals.

"We like to see collaboration of this kind," says Daniel Bealko, global commodity manager for lightweight metals at General Motors. "It results in a one-stop solution for our metals management and eliminates the need to sort through a proliferation of Web-based offerings while retaining the ability to obtain competitive prices," he adds.

Bob Adams, director of global raw materials purchasing at Ford, says "The alliance appears to be a great opportunity to expand liquidity in the marketplace.''

Emetra and cmXchange executives foresee no conflict between their activities and those of Covisint, the e-business venture that comprises a number of auto manufacturers including Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan and Renault. "Covisint's main objective right now is in collaborative engineering, supply chain management and fabricated parts auctions and procurement so their focus is not really on raw materials,'' suggests Paul Shellman, cmXchange's director of international development.