American Purchasing Society and Manufacturers' News Form Strategic Alliance To Benefit Industrial Purchasing Professionals.

Business Editors

EVANSTON, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2000

The American Purchasing Society (Aurora, IL) and Manufacturers' News, Inc. today announced the development of a strategic alliance to improve the industrial purchasing function through joint promotion of the APS Certified Purchasing Professional (CPP) certification program and educational resources, in conjunction with the most comprehensive, online industrial buyers guide, the MNI Guide to U.S. Manufacturers published by Manufacturers' News at MNIGuide.com.

The alliance will provide cross-promotion between each organization's members, users and customers, in order to combine resources that will improve the industrial procurement process. While APS and MNI will exchange links on their corporate sites, APS will also provide educational content to the MNIGuide.com Web site to help users in the sourcing and procurement process. For example, MNIGuide.com provides an automated Request for Quotation (RFQ) tool to streamline and expedite the bid process for buyers. Users of the MNI Guide will now be able to access a library of topical resources developed by APS, such as, "How to Use RFQ's" and "Preparing Requests for Quotations" that will greatly improve their sourcing and purchasing functions.

"This alliance will further enhance the rapid growth of membership in the Society and provide valuable new benefits for the members," states Dr. Harry E. Hough, President of the American Purchasing Society. "There is little doubt that the purchasing profession is rapidly changing and business buyers require the type of information that the MNIGuide.com web site, Manufacturers' News, and the APS supply."

The American Purchasing Society is an organization of buyers, purchasing managers, executives, and others interested in the purchasing profession. It was founded in 1969 and has members from every state and 28 countries worldwide. Its objective is to improve the business purchasing function through education and a certification program. It was the first organization to establish a certification program for buyers and purchasing managers. Its Certified Purchasing Professional (CPP) program is unique because it not only measures the competence of the applicants through a written examination, but it conducts reference checks to evaluate the applicant's business reputation.

Manufacturers' News, founded in 1912, is the leader in business information profiles of U.S. manufacturers. On May 1, 2000 the company launched MNIGuide.com, a free buyers guide to more than 440,000 U.S. manufacturers, distributors and industrial suppliers in the award-winning MNI database.

MNIGuide.com is a searchable business-to-business (B2B) database of U.S. manufacturers that enables purchasing professionals worldwide to identify industrial suppliers in the U.S. Accessing the easy-to-use database is free of charge and requires no user registration. Users simply enter a product description, select a geographic region, and click "Begin Search." The powerful MNI search engine queries all 440,000+ companies in the database cross-relationally to more than 10,000 product description/category headings. Results for companies with enhanced listings in the MNI Guide include company name, address, phone, fax, and a rapidly growing number of URL and email addresses. The site's e-business tools presently incorporate an automated Request For Quote (RFQ) feature that allows a buyer to develop a single RFQ and automatically send it to multiple suppliers with a single click of the mouse.

About the American Purchasing Society

The American Purchasing Society, Inc., Aurora, IL, was founded in 1969 by a group of business professionals who wanted to improve the operations of the purchasing function for business and improve ethical conduct in business. Both certified and non-certified members receive various publications including Professional Purchasing monthly, the "Benchmarking Report of Purchasing Operations" annually, and the "Annual Report of Purchasing Salaries and Employment Trends." The Society also publishes a generic "Purchasing Policy and Procedure Manual," "Modern Principles of Negotiating," and other buyer training material.

About Manufacturers' News, Inc.

Manufacturers' News, Inc., Evanston, IL, has been gathering and publishing industrial information since 1912, beginning with its flagship publication, the Illinois Manufacturers Directory. In addition to hardbound print directories for all 50 states, MNI also publishes information on CD-ROM and diskette, as well as providing "Search & Download" options on the MNILeads.com and MNIinfo.com websites. MNI business information lists and corporate profiles of U.S. manufacturers are used across a spectrum of business applications, including industrial sources for procurement, executive recruitment for human resources, direct mailing lists for marketing, and prospect leads for sales to name a few.