aPriori Cost Management Platform Expands Scalability in New Version

Concord, MA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/10/2006 --aPriori, the leading provider of enterprise cost management solutions for discrete product companies, today announced it has released the newest version, v4.6, of its enterprise cost management software platform.

“Our vision is to improve the financial results of discrete product companies by enabling them to actively control and measurably reduce products’ cost of goods sold (COGS) with an innovative, predictive, and reliable cost management software platform,” said John Busa, Vice-President of Product Management of aPriori. Busa added, “This release adds significant breadth, scalability, and ease of use features to meet this vision. The rapid ROI (return-on-investment) our customers are seeing as measured by hard savings is a testament to the capabilities and value our product brings.”

Key new features include:
• An improved user interface that allows for easier navigation and data visualization
• An innovative costing decision support capability called “Scenarios” that enables efficient comparisons of design and process alternatives and can be used to maintain the cost history of a product
• Robust support for milling processes is now supported in addition to existing support of sheet metal fabrication, welding, casting, painting/plating, and injection molding.
• Multi-currency support for all cost computations allows global companies and their foreign suppliers and facilities to be easily integrated into costing decisions
• User defined data fields for VPE modeling adds the ability for users to easily create and maintain unique VPE cost factors resulting in efficient and scalable cost management

The new features provide significant enhancements in three key areas of the aPriori platform. This release delivers powerful new costing decision support capabilities and an enhanced user interface for non-engineering personnel. It also provides robust support for milling processes to add to the extensive list of manufacturing processes aPriori supports. Finally, the v4.6 extends the scalability of the cost management environment with enhancements to its innovative Virtual Production Environment (VPE) modeling capability. A VPE models the characteristics of a factory including the manufacturing processes, the machines supporting that process and the factory’s cost structure.
"Determining the optimal cost of a product during the initial concept phase and throughout the development process is critical to truly meeting cost goals and eliminating expensive post design cost issues," said Tim Roberts, Vice President of Engineering, Thomas and Betts. Roberts noted, "New features from aPriori, such as multi-currency support and a user interface for non-engineering personnel, provide even more robust capabilities in managing our cost targets across our division.”

Availability
The aPriori enterprise cost management platform version 4.6 is available immediately.

About aPriori
Based in Concord, MA, aPriori is the leading provider of enterprise cost management solutions to the discrete manufacturing industry. aPriori’s Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to “cost-critical” decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business “offensive.” aPriori’s groundbreaking and innovative Cost Management Platform integrates cost decisions for all critical functions throughout the corporate cost management ecosystem. This enables manufacturers, for the first time, to understand product cost decisions early, comprehensively and throughout the product development and delivery cycle. aPriori’s patent protected Cost Management Platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform truly enables “Cost Knowledge Before it Matters.”

“aPriori has customers in a variety of industries including High Technology, Industrial Equipment, Automotive, and Heavy Machinery. Recent customers include John Deere, Panasonic, Thomas & Betts, Flextronics, JLG, and Dana Corporation.”