Grant: Engage Grants Program

Liasn Exchange Inc. is a Canadian own start up business providing sales processing services to the automotive industry. Their initial client base includes the 768 Ontario based automotive dealerships. The business' challenge is automating the vehicle sales cycle which involves the interchange of several documents including purchasing, insurance and financing between several parties including the provincial government, private insurer, the automobile purchaser and dealership. The process is currently mainly paper-based with the exchange of documents through fax and dealers having their own format for providing purchasing information. Liasn is providing an automation service that will use optical readers to digitally transfer the information to serve as a precursor to industry format standardization. Thus their system needs to adaptively learn to recognize a variety of formats to identify the necessary information required by each of the sales cycle parties (government, insurer, etc.). The research will also involve learning and searching for fraud and validating correct information has been provided. This research project will significantly reduce human error due to transcribing information, fraud within the industry and delays processing and improperly or uninsured or mistakenly financed drivers. Such issues are of significant interest to the Ontario government, insurance companies and finance businesses as they can pose a significant liability in cases of automobile accidents involving such improperly/incorrectly processed automotive purchasers.