Lilly Software Chosen by Italian Aerospace Leader, Alenia Spazio.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

HAMPTON, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 21, 2003

Alenia Spazio, a leading Italian company in the Aerospace industry for telecommunications, telecontrol, orbiting infrastructures, and scientific satellites, has chosen VISUAL Enterprise(TM) from Lilly Software for managing, planning, and scheduling its production processes. After a year of searching and evaluating several software packages, it selected Lilly's extended enterprise system for manufacturers, distributed by the Italian Lilly Software Associate, Praxis Calcolo.

The objective of the agreement with Praxis Calcolo involves implementing VISUAL Enterprise at the aerospace manufacturer's Italian sites. It includes integrating all the plant activities, from material planning to internal and external resources scheduling, as well as purchase requisition, data collection, and quality documentation. The agreement also includes integrating VISUAL Enterprise with Alenia Spazio's other strategic software systems.

Mr. Giuseppe Maione, IT Manager for Production & Logistic Processes at Alenia Spazio, comments on the decisional path and the primary reasons for choosing VISUAL: "The Aerospace industry is becoming more and more competitive and complex. On-time delivery and accurate cost control are now fundamental factors for surviving in this market. We performed a very careful evaluation, which lasted almost a year, on the software products available, including the most popular and emerging ones. We chose VISUAL Enterprise for its innovative and easy-to-use approach to production management and planning. Moreover, VISUAL Enterprise gives us a strong integration ground, which will allow us, thanks to its wide functionality, to substitute all of our plant legacy software."

"We're enthusiastic to add Alenia Spazio to our increasing list of VISUAL customers. This agreement further validates our initiative of representing this software in Italy," says Mr. Filippo Lux, Praxis Calcolo Sales Director.

"We will go live with VISUAL Enterprise at the first plant in late January. We will be rolling out the system in the other plants in the second quarter of 2003," informs Mr. Enrico Colombo, VISUAL Enterprise Business Unit Manager within Praxis Calcolo.

"The design and the manufacturing of a satellite is a long and very complex process," says Mr. Maione. "The functional characteristics of VISUAL Enterprise are very well suited for this kind of production."

About Lilly Software Associates

Lilly Software Associates, Inc. (LSA) provides a complete line of enterprise and supply chain management solutions for manufacturers and distributors. With its easy-to-use graphical nature, the VISUAL suite of products helps companies capture accurate, real-time data about their business processes using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Quality Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), e-Business, and Warehouse Management System (WMS) capabilities.

Most VISUAL applications run on Windows NT(R), UNIX(R), LINUX, VMS, Novell(R) or OS400 using SQLBase(R), Microsoft SQLServer(TM), ORACLE(R) or DB2(R)/400 relational databases, and are certified for both iSeries and Netfinity servers.

Lilly Software has received many industry awards for its products, service, and financial growth. Recently, Lilly Software has been voted one of the 2002 Top 10 Best of Breed solutions for manufacturing by readers of Consumer Goods Technology, included in MSI's Top 100 for its seventh year, listed again in Software Magazine's Top 500, ranked in the Top 100 Application Vendors in Supply Chain e-Business, and selected as a Top 100 Logistics Information Technology Provider by Inbound Logistics.

About Alenia Spazio S.p.A.

Alenia Spazio, belonging to Finmeccanica Group, is the most important Italian company, and one of the European leaders, in the Aerospace industry. It participates in the main international programs, has contributed to the manufacture of over 200 satellites, and has four branches: telecommunications, telecontrol, orbiting infrastructures, and scientific satellites.

The Italian company provided a strong contribution in the building of the International Space Station (ISS). Specifically, Alenia Spazio has designed and manufactured, in its Turin plant, the three Pressurized Logistic Modules (MPLM) of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), the Knots 2 and 3, the Dome, and the scientific laboratory of the European Space Agency (ESA) Columbus. Alenia Spazio also participates in the manufacturing of the ATV vehicle and the Transhab.

In the telecommunication business, Alenia Spazio was the main contractor in several national and international programs, including Italsat, Sicral, Atlantic Bird I, and EuroSkyWay, the first European Broadband Network, which will be active in 2003.

At the moment, Alenia Spazio is the industrial reference within the Galileo Industries consortium for the completion of the European program Galileo.

Alenia Spazio controls three companies: Laben, which specializes in data elaboration systems; SSI, which develops and distributes software for space applications; and QSW, Quadrics Computer World Ltd, which is in the supercomputer business for parallel calculation. www.aleniaspazio.com.