Camstar Unveils New Product for Real-Time Manufacturing Performance Management.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2003

LiveAlert(TM) Allows Companies to Detect and Resolve Manufacturing

Problems Immediately, Improving Quality And Productivity

Camstar, a leading provider of manufacturing performance management systems, today introduced LiveAlert(TM), a new real-time notification and exception management solution.

With LiveAlert, Camstar enables companies to reduce the time and effort needed to identify and resolve manufacturing problems through user-defined business rules that identify problems and alert plant personnel.

LiveAlert works in concert with Camstar's InSite(TM), the leading manufacturing performance management system for global companies. Using live production data from InSite, LiveAlert instantly notifies personnel by e-mail, phone, pager or hand-held device when a manufacturing issue arises so that they can take immediate action and prevent more serious quality or cost issues. Through user-defined business rules, pre-defined action plans determine who should be contacted about specific problems, ultimately saving valuable time and resources.

"The next big gains in quality and productivity will come from detecting and resolving manufacturing variability as it occurs," said John Beans, Camstar's vice president of marketing. "Systemic, ongoing problems can be detected over time using business intelligence tools like our LiveView(TM) - but once those issues are resolved, you are left with thousands of one-time events that can be just as costly. Manufacturing performance excellence requires the kind of fast detection and agile response times that LiveAlert can help provide."

Key LiveAlert features include:

-- Prioritization - Alerts are prioritized based on configurable

events and business logic.

-- Escalation Procedures - Business rules can be defined to

promote an unresolved event to the next layer of management,

based on time and/or severity.

-- Proactive Analysis and Response - Issue and resolution

analysis reports help determine the impact of an event on key

performance indicators, such as cost, efficiency and resource

utilization.

-- Persistent tracking - Alerts are captured and stored over time

for later correlation to larger trends and for scorecarding

purposes.

LiveAlert also provides an easy-to-use Web-based interface that allows multiple users to collaborate on problem resolution. Suppliers and partners also can be granted secure access to collaborate on solutions.

About Camstar Systems, Inc.

Camstar is a leading provider of enterprise manufacturing performance management systems for life sciences, semiconductor, electronics and other global industrial manufacturers. Camstar's InSite(TM) product suite extends traditional manufacturing execution systems (MES) to monitor and synchronize manufacturing activities across globally distributed plants, and integrates them in real-time core business processes. The system enables customers to respond rapidly to changing demand, optimize the use of production assets and quickly ramp the production of new products. More than 100 leading companies, including IBM, Corning, Kodak, Hitachi, Lexmark, ALZ Steel and La-Z-Boy, rely on Camstar as a trusted software partner.