IMDS facilitates meeting the obligations placed on automobile manufacturers, and thus on their suppliers, by national and international standards, laws and regulations.
The IMDS was originally a collaboration of Audi, BMW, Daimler, EDS (now part of DXC Technology, the system administrator), Ford, Opel, Porsche, VW and Volvo.
Substances and materials of products must be known in detail so that it may be delivered by the OEMs to dismantler companies in order to achieve the goals of the ELV Directive.
Data entry in IMDS is frequently a contractual requirement of PPAP which is one part of standard automotive quality systems.
The basic web browser version of the system is supported by the OEM sponsor's group and provided free of charge to suppliers in the automotive supply chain.