Apexon Adds Product Quality Planning to Quality Solution Suite.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 2003

New Product Plus Enhanced Centralized Management Across Divisions and Plants Addresses Quality Business Drivers for Global Manufacturers

Apexon Inc., the leading provider of Enterprise Quality Management software solutions, today announced the latest addition to its solution set, Apexon Product Quality Planning (PQP). Apexon PQP is a Web-based solution for global manufacturers that proactively reduces quality issues and related costs within the context of today's manufacturing trends, including increased product complexity, shrinking product lifecycles and ever-greater dependence on extended supply chains. PQP offers highly strategic and proactive quality assurance that reduces design-to-production time and improves product quality predictability. Through better upstream processes, potential downstream quality issues are reduced or eliminated, significantly increasing high-quality first-time yields in new product introductions (NPI). With this release, Apexon firmly establishes itself as the technology leader in connecting manufacturing customers, plants and suppliers to manage, measure and standardize both preventative and reactive quality processes.

As product lifecycles shrink, fast new product introductions are crucial to a manufacturer's competitive advantage. However, rising product complexity, coupled with increasingly outsourced and supplier-dependent processes, often create quality issues that negatively impact time to market. Typically, PQP processes are inconsistent, manually executed and poorly enforced across multiple plants and divisions. Apexon's Web-based PQP solution ensures that all plants, divisions and suppliers around the globe are connected and given appropriate visibility into, and control over, quality planning. Apexon PQP automates and enforces consistent process execution, eliminating variability in results, reducing cycle times and increasing overall yield. Apexon PQP also aids in reducing costs throughout the process, from inventory and scrap reductions to lowered warranty costs and other Costs of Poor Quality.

In addition to PQP, the current version of the Apexon suite offers enhanced centralized management that extends multi-plant management capabilities across Apexon's entire suite of quality applications. A supplier working with multiple plant facilities now has a single point of access to view and manage all processes related to multiple plants. Apexon has also improved the "cross-connection" of all quality processes, strengthening the direct link between process such as non-conformance management and corrective action (NCM/CAR) and production part approval processes (PPAP). These closed-loop, connected processes are crucial for improving communication and collaboration across all plants and suppliers to proactively reduce quality related costs and reactively speed problem resolution. The Apexon suite addresses the major quality business drivers for global manufacturers, including:

-- Competitive Differentiation: Demanding end customers want

6Sigma quality that comes from proactive quality management as

well as robust and reliable systems for identifying,

isolating, problem solving and preventing the recurrence of

quality issues.

-- Warranty Reduction: Warranty costs represent 3-5% of sales for

manufacturing leaders and are increasingly visible to

investors and competitors due to changes in financial

disclosure requirements. Apexon offers both proactive and

reactive solutions for reducing warranty costs.

-- Supply Base Changes and Quality: The mandate to move the

supply base to low cost regions or to outsource whole

subsystems creates new issues in certifying suppliers and

parts and cross-company resolution of quality issues. Apexon

enables faster supplier and part qualification, and better

collaboration once in production.

-- Faster NPI Cycles: Manufacturers face shorter product

lifecycles and faster new product introduction processes which

must be standardized and coordinated on a global basis across

functions and companies. Apexon reduces design to production

time by enforcing consistent PQP and PPAP processes across

every plant, and reduces corrective cycle times by giving

clear visibility into integrated NCM/CAR processes.

-- Process Standardization & 6Sigma: Quality leaders are turning

to process standardization as a critical lever to improve

quality and reduce costs on a global scale. Apexon enables

process standardization by defining, measuring and analyzing

metrics, identifying bottlenecks and enforcing execution of

new corrective processes.

-- Cost of Quality and Cost of Poor Quality: Manufacturers of

complex products spend 10-15% of sales managing proactive,

inspection and reactive quality business processes. Apexon

delivers real-time participation in standardized quality

processes across all plants and suppliers, proactively

reducing all quality-related costs and reactively speeding

problem resolution time.

"Apexon's quality solutions are designed for global manufacturers looking to leverage the Internet across a vast network of customers, manufacturing plants and suppliers to manage, automate and improve quality processes," said Matt Holleran, CEO of Apexon. "Leaders in 6Sigma and quality management are using our software to improve product quality, reduce warranty costs and manage the transition to low cost sourcing. Adding PQP to our arsenal of solutions further extends our ability to help these companies meet their quality and other business objectives."

About Apexon

Apexon Inc. is the leading provider of Enterprise Quality Management software solutions for global manufacturing companies. By leveraging the Internet, Apexon connects customers, plants and suppliers to manage, measure and standardize both preventative and reactive quality processes. Apexon addresses the primary quality business drivers affecting global manufacturers, turning quality into a competitive differentiator, reducing warranty and other Costs of Poor Quality and improving the transition to low cost sourcing while preserving quality levels. Apexon is privately held with investments from Accel Partners, Foundation Capital, Menlo Ventures and David A. Stamm, co-founder and former CEO of Clarify, Inc. The company is based in San Jose, Calif. and can be reached via the Internet at www.apexon.com or by calling 408-573-2500.

Apexon and the Apexon logo are registered trademarks of Apexon. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.