Corel's iGrafx FlowCharter Keeps NASA's Kennedy Space Center Flying High.

Business Editors

OTTAWA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 16, 2002

Visual Diagramming Improves Launch Management Processes,

Organizational Procedures and Makes Continuous Improvement Easier

Corel Corporation (Nasdaq:CORL) (TSX:COR) today unveiled how the NASA's Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral, Fla.) used Corel's iGrafx(R) FlowCharter(TM) software to meet the highest level of ISO 9000 compliancy, called ISO 9001. This effort was part of a NASA imperative to change its existing organizational culture and to run itself more like a business by focusing on improving the center's project management, organizational support and launch processes. By using iGrafx FlowCharter to document all its procedures, the center's personnel were able to dramatically reduce the amount of paper used, increase employees' understanding of its activities and improve its process management.

"We were asked to totally change our culture and the way we conducted business," said Jim Lichtenthal, a project manager for the process management division. "Process improvement was a new discipline for us. It forced us to rethink everything. So it seemed only logical that we should meet the same exacting standards that thousands of our suppliers were already meeting."

Charged with translating hundreds of thousands of pages of textual process descriptions into a format that was quickly understood, Lichtenthal and his team followed a consultant's recommendation to try flowcharting, a visual diagramming of the sequential path of information through a system, the operations, and their sequence in the system. Such a pictograph of an organization's procedures is readily comprehended and highlights any gaps, making them easy to correct.

Because of its ease of use, the Space Center selected iGrafx FlowCharter software as the tool to replace its text-based documents that tended to be long "to do" lists of actions. Compressing this information into a graphic representation made the space center staff better able to get a total picture of their processes much quicker and to see how they were integrated more clearly.

By conducting interviews and documenting center procedures with iGrafx FlowCharter, the process management division was able to not only clearly define the center's processes, but also discover processes that had gone undocumented and reveal procedural disconnects. Through this course of action, Lichtenthal's team learned that flowcharting reduced the amount of text-based documents by five to ten times, oftentimes reducing a 50-page process description to fewer than a dozen diagrams. Because the flowcharts are stored electronically, the Space Center was able to do away with rooms full of paper-based documentation.

Lichtenthal and his group also found that the flowcharts were easier to update than text-based process documentation. This meant that their ability to change a process document dropped from months to a few days, because the flowcharts showed how all the processes interconnected. Using the same process framework, Drake created a documentation system for the Space Center's hundreds of processes, that is accessible through auto-updateable links. Today management uses the system to view major process areas, determine process performance, and identify areas of improvement.

Based upon the number of process interviews that Lichtenthal and his group do every month, he expects to see one hundred percent of the processes change every year. Lichtenthal said that the center is constantly revising and updating-and continuing to improve its system by introducing more tools that enhance the understanding of its business.

"Creating a system that was easy for our employees to use and understand was the major reason we switched from text documents to flowcharts," said Lichtenthal. "By going through this text to flowchart conversion, we found that the textual documents sometimes didn't reflect the sequence of events that made up the procedure. Often the text documents had process gaps that didn't show up until we tried flowcharting them. Just by converting these from text to flowcharts, we immediately gained a better understanding of our activities. This change significantly increased our ability to manage the center's processes effectively."

About iGrafx(R)

iGrafx is Corel's family of enterprise process management (EPM) tools that provide high-value solutions for organizations where performance management and process improvement are strategic initiatives. iGrafx(R) FlowCharter(TM) 2003 delivers information-rich flowcharts that enhance procedural documentation and help organizations meet the new ISO9000 standards. iGrafx(R) Process for Six Sigma(TM) 2003 supports high-impact Six Sigma projects capable of delivering significant return-on-investment. For the increasing number of enterprises embracing EPM, iGrafx(R) Process Central(TM) 2003 is a solution for securing, controlling and sharing the enterprise process knowledge base. For more information on iGrafx EPM solutions, please visit www.igrafx.com.

About Corel Corporation

Founded in 1985, Corel Corporation (www.corel.com) is a leading technology company specializing in content creation tools, business process management and XML-enabled enterprise solutions. The company's goal is to give consumers and enterprise customers the ability to create, exchange and instantly interact with visual content that is always relevant, accurate and available. With its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, Corel's common stock trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol CORL and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol COR.

(C) 2002 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. Corel, iGrafx, iGrafx FlowCharter, iGrafx Process Central, iGrafx Process, iGrafx Process for Six Sigma and the Corel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in Canada, the US and/or other countries. All other product, font and company names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.