Altro Solutions Builds Supermarket Supply Chain Extranet for Fleming.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 1998--Altro Solutions Inc., a leading provider of innovative Internet-based solutions to Fortune 500 enterprise clients, announced today that it has delivered the VISIONET(R) 2.0 Network to Fleming (NYSE:FLM).

VISIONET is a powerful, full-featured Extranet commerce and communications platform that supports the delivery of Fleming products and services throughout its nationwide supply center and transportation infrastructure to its thousands of independent and supermarket chain customers. For the first time, VISIONET Network also creates a direct link between Fleming's customers and its supply chain partners, including national and store brand packaged good vendors.

Fleming is a leading U.S. food marketing and distribution company, serving over 3,000 supermarkets in 42 states. Altro Solutions Inc., is a national provider of business consulting, software development, and systems integration services, specializing in the delivery of Content Rich Information Solutions(R).

Retail Consumer Packaged Goods and Grocery Industry Breakthrough

VISIONET gives supermarket category managers and buyers rapid, graphically rich access to information about more than 400,000 products. It enables Fleming retailers and vendor partners to communicate with one another and with Fleming through a single integrated systems environment. Now, Fleming and its vendor partners and supermarket retailing customers can send text or multimedia content to each other online.

With VISIONET, Fleming provides an electronic commerce platform for its vendors and retailers that makes it easier to do business, and provides faster access to the information and content needed for success in a changing marketplace. Now, Fleming can more easily facilitate and support its retail store customers in their efforts to make the most effective buying decisions possible.

Retailers can quickly and easily access time critical and relevant product, pricing and promotional information to better manage pricing decisions, improve market and customer response, and increase business revenues and margins. Manufacturers and vendors can access product information and evaluate the effectiveness of promotional offers on a near real-time basis.

This means they can now more efficiently communicate with retailers by targeting the right product information to the right audiences at the right time. As a result, consumers can expect even better product availability at competitive prices.

Using Technology to Meet Changing Markets

Traditional patterns of buying and selling in the supermarket industry have changed dramatically in recent years. Warehouse clubs, discount chains, mass marketers and convenience stores that rely on specialized approaches to meet consumer demand for value and convenience now challenge full-service supermarkets. In addition, more of the consumer's food dollar is directed to meals outside the home and to prepared foods.

As a result, all three "traditional links" in the grocery supply chain -- vendor, distributor and retailer -- have been searching for ways to increase revenues and margins while controlling operating costs and ensuring the most timely and efficient response to consumer needs. Fleming is redefining its business to better respond to customer needs and seize new opportunities as they occur.

"Technology is changing fast, and Fleming is changing with it. We continue to develop innovative ways to manage our business better and meet consumer needs. One key to success is using technology to improve efficiency and better satisfy changing consumer demands," said Dick Simpson, senior vice president of Retail Services at Fleming. "Fleming has invested in technology development to stay on the cutting edge and the success of our investment is best demonstrated by the excellent response we've had to VISIONET."

By taking advantage of new information technology platforms, in particular the Internet, Fleming seeks to provide independent retailers with economies of scale similar to those that large chains enjoy. Fleming also wants to work with its consumer packaged goods manufacturers and food and fresh produce vendor partners to bring more competitive offerings to the marketplace.

Powerful Web-Based Extranet

Fleming began to implement this innovative supply chain service three years ago with an initial version of VISIONET, a business-to-business networked service designed to enable improved communications and commerce among its retail customers, suppliers and Fleming.

VISIONET began as a proprietary system delivering services to its users via IBM 3270 mainframe screens. While VISIONET contained valuable information, vendors and retailers needed a friendlier, easier-to-use technology solution. VISIONET 1.0's command line interface and multiple password access made it somewhat cumbersome to use and navigate.

While VISIONET has continued to evolve dramatically, the real breakthrough in functionality and ease-of-use came with the advent of the World Wide Web and VISIONET's transition into a full-featured Extranet.

"VISIONET 2.0 makes product marketing and ordering faster, easier and more efficient," said Sonny Sanchez, Fleming's director of Retail VISIONET Services. "Retailers and manufacturers now communicate with one another through an easy-to-use, point-and-click Internet browser interface that can dramatically increase selling and ordering efficiency."

From time-sensitive bulletins to a library of industry and market reference materials, VISIONET offers visually rich business content for the supermarket and grocery industry. Order status, inventory and product "turns" can now all be monitored remotely. Retailers can view and consider vendor marketing programs, including displays, media and events materials.

"All of the information is graphically rich, searchable and easily accessible. We can even send out special marketing bulletins, for example, that include a video or other visuals to confirm the quality of perishable items for sale," said Sanchez.

Supply Chain Partners Included From the Start

Vendor and retailer partners played an important role in helping Fleming define VISIONET's requirements. Based on input from these key supply chain constituencies, Altro Solutions worked closely with Fleming's business and information technology teams to design VISIONET, a powerfully integrated Intranet/Extranet and messaging solution. Fleming's information technology organization and Altro then worked as a team to develop it.

"From a business communications standpoint, VISIONET is a truly impressive undertaking. Fleming has essentially created an industry community where the sharing of information among trade partners takes place on an unprecedented scale," said Joseph Garappolo, president and founder of Altro Solutions Inc.

How VISIONET Works

VISIONET has a multi-tiered architecture, interoperating with Fleming's IBM mainframe systems. These mainframes use robust applications to process product data on a massive scale. The Fleming Information Broker (FIB) is a sophisticated middleware application designed and developed by Altro Solutions which provides product and market data extract services and transactions via an Oracle(R) database.

Supermarket retailers, usually from their headquarters site, communicate with Fleming online using VISIONET to interact with its systems via the FIB utilizing Netscape's Enterprise Server. This allows Fleming's retail partners to receive high-value, time-sensitive bulletins about perishable goods, special Fleming or vendor offers, or store- or chain-specific information.

VISIONET also gives supermarket retailers World Wide Web access to a rich reference library of industry- and vendor-specific information. In addition, Fleming can use VISIONET to provide value-added retail category management service to its customers.

"Netscape Messaging and Netscape Directory Server Software provided the breadth of capability we needed to build a complete solution," said Nello Franco, Altro director and VISIONET project manager.

In addition, non-headquarters retail stores, Fleming associates (field sales and support staff) and vendors all have Web-based access to the same information, as well as to other services and capabilities. These users can look up information regarding a multitude of items, offers and orders. They can also create and send out multimedia bulletins or special content-rich critical marketing information associated with specific products.

Compact applications, or applets, are written in Sun's JAVA(R) programming language. These applets communicated through Netscape providing connectivity to back-end Oracle databases and can manage user access, and dynamically deliver content tailored to the profile and needs of individual users.

These Java applets permit Fleming teams, suppliers and vendors, and retailers to search and sort data on a local level. Additionally, Netscape allows easier system administration by providing an interface into the Oracle database that manages user access and privileges.

About Altro Solutions

Altro Solutions Inc., with headquarters in San Jose and offices in Iselin, N.J., is a national provider of information systems consulting, software development and systems integration services. Founded in 1992, Altro Solutions Inc. has a reputation for innovative, high-quality information technology solutions. Altro clients are primarily Fortune 500 companies.

Altro Solutions is noted for its business analysis and process re-engineering skills as well as its technical expertise. The company uses a "value chain" framework to analyze and engineer business processes that maximize its client's total return-on-investment (ROI).

Altro specializes in building Content Rich Information Solutions that effectively meld structured and unstructured data that help its clients achieve competitive advantages by exploiting new value opportunities and sources of revenue. Altro maintains two primary practice specialties: Content and Knowledge Management Solutions and Supply Chain and Cross-Enterprise Solutions.

Content and Knowledge Management Solutions are focused on the acquisition, creation, management and application of critical information to business processes. Supply Chain and Cross-Enterprise Solutions are focused on the transactions of goods and services between trade partners.

About Fleming

Fleming, with headquarters in Oklahoma City, Okla., and approximately $15.4 billion in annual sales, is one of the nation's leading food marketing and distribution companies. Fleming serves more than 3,000 supermarket customers, including more than 280 company-owned stores in 42 states.

Other high-value Fleming retail services designed specifically for supermarket retailers include: store consulting, category management, store planning, loyalty marketing, pricing, retail marketing, advertising, retail technology and financial services.

Fleming and VISIONET are registered trademarks of Fleming Companies Inc. Altro and Content Rich Information Solutions are registered trademarks of Altro Solutions Inc. Sun and Java are registered trademarks of Sun. Netscape, Netscape Navigator, Netscape Certificate Server, Netscape ONE, SuiteSpot and the Netscape N and Ship's Wheel logos are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corp. in the United States and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications Corp., which may be registered in other countries. Other product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.