Komatsu Kicks-Off Epic Data's P3 Materials Management System -P3-MMS- at its Ripley, Tennessee Facility.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 19, 2004

Epic Data International Inc. (TSX:EKD) today announced that Komatsu America Corp. began implementation of its P3 Materials Management System (P3-MMS) inventory management module for implementation at its Ripley, Tennessee facility. Contractual terms for the new system had been previously concluded in December 2003.

P3-MMS helps manufacturers accelerate towards a lean, demand-driven manufacturing supply chain by creating visibility of material flows across the enterprise and throughout the manufacturing supply chain.

"P3-MMS is expected to address three major objectives for our operation," said Gerry Lovell, General Manager of Komatsu's Ripley facility. "These include improving employee productivity, enhancing our inventory accuracy and improving the quality and level of service offered to our customers."

Peter Murphy, Epic Data President and CEO, commented, "P3-MMS provides state of the art functionality to streamline manufacturing warehouses. But unlike conventional warehouse management systems, P3-MMS provides visibility of material flows throughout the manufacturing process. Visibility of material flow, from supplier to the finished goods shipping dock, helps manufacturers to move from traditional material resource planning to flow manufacturing management. Having a single architecture that optimizes traditional systems and supports flow manufacturing systems, enables our customers to both address their immediate needs and accelerate continuous improvement."

The integrated functionality of P3-MMS improves productivity by reducing or eliminating many non-valued material handling and data entry steps in the production process. P3-MMS reduces inventory costs by helping companies to implement just-in-time replenishment techniques. P3-MMS enables manufacturers to integrate demand-pull replenishment principles into today's complex manufacturing supply chain processes, with functions that enable production workers to send replenishment signals instantly from work cell to work cell, and to extend demand-pull signals to external suppliers.

P3-MMS helps companies improve on-time deliveries with comprehensive visibility of material flows, from inbound logistics and order-picking tasks, to inventory storage management and preparation of finished product shipments.

About P3-CME

P3-MMS is available as a stand-alone product or as part of Epic Data's P3 Collaborative Manufacturing Execution Suite (P3-CME). P3-CME creates a common, bottom-up view of information flow that provides managers with the visibility needed to synchronize and adjust production with real-time demands. It provides complete production process traceability, and supports continuous improvement efforts in mass customization, outsourcing and lean manufacturing.

P3-CME builds upon Epic Data's 28 years of experience in providing automated data-capture systems for discrete manufacturing. Designed specifically for discrete manufacturing operations, P3-CME supports advanced auto-identification and capture, including all standard barcode types, magnetic stripe and radio frequency identification (RFID).

About Epic Data International Inc.

Epic Data has been a leader in automatic identification and data-capture solutions for more than 25 years. Epic Data's solutions are used by hundreds of leading manufacturers across the globe in the aerospace, automotive, high technology and heavy machinery industries to increase productivity and accelerate continuous improvement. Epic Data's wide-area wireless solutions for parking enforcement and route management increase productivity while improving customer service and worker safety, by connecting mobile personnel to central offices in real time. People and technology make Epic Data the global leader in automated data-capture solutions for the extended enterprise.