Canopy International Begins Business Process Automation Project for Lafarge Corporation's Financial System.

Business/Technology Editors

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2001

Canopy International, an e-business integrator specializing in automating enterprise and business-to-business integration, today announced that it has been selected by Lafarge Corporation (NYSE & TSE: LAF), North America's largest diversified supplier of construction materials, to define and implement an integration strategy that will improve financial reporting efficiency, reliability, and accuracy as well as provide a simple, consistent method of reporting information across Lafarge's divisions.

Canopy's integration solution will help automate the exchange of financial data and streamline reporting processes across Lafarge's Gypsum, Construction Materials, and Cementitious Materials (including Systech) divisions. Canopy has a long-standing relationship with Lafarge, and has provided integration strategies and solutions for its Canadian and U.S. operations. Lafarge relies on Canopy's expertise to enable its best-of-breed software strategy and to automate strategic business processes.

"The automation of these processes across the different global divisions will help us achieve more efficient levels of communication," explained Grant Silbernagel, director of information technology, Gypsum at Lafarge. "With Canopy's solution in place we can greatly improve reporting speed and efficiency, allowing time for more analysis of information within and between the financial divisions."

Canopy has already completed requirements analysis and developed the integration solution, which will automate Lafarge's current cumbersome and time-consuming manual accounting reconciliation processes. The standardization of procedures and balance-flow reporting will reduce cycle time for closing and reporting across Lafarge's regions.

"Lafarge is looking to reduce the time required to close and transfer financial data, a manual input process that previously took up to five days depending on the region," said Dave Martin, vice president of operations at Canopy. "Canopy's integration solution is going to drastically reduce the time spent for financial reporting and provide Lafarge with more timely access to cross-region information."

About Canopy International

Canopy International (www.canopyint.com) offers consulting and integration services, enabling companies to create open interoperability in e-business relationships. Canopy's e-business integration services help B2B companies maximize their investments in e-business technology. Canopy provides full lifecycle integration services--including strategy, architecture, implementation and maintenance--that result in scalable, industrial-strength connectivity solutions, accelerating information flow through the entire value chain.

About Lafarge Corporation

Lafarge Corporation (www.lafargecorp.com) is North America's largest diversified supplier of cement, aggregates and concrete, and other materials for residential, commercial, institutional and public works construction. The company operates 15 cement plants, approximately 800 construction materials operations, five gypsum wallboard manufacturing facilities and other businesses in 44 states in the U.S. and all provinces of Canada. The company's majority shareholder is Lafarge (Paris Stock Exchange: LAFP). The Lafarge Group is the world leader in building materials with operations in 70 countries and sales in excess of $11 billion.