nMetric Links Engineering, Manufacturing and Order Management Up/Down the Supply Chain.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

COSTA MESA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2001

First Suite to Provide Real-Time, Live Scheduling, Monitoring and

Tracking of Manufacturing Status at All Times

nMetric today announced a breakthrough Manufacturing Collaboration system based on a real-time, live processing engine that provides event-driven scheduling, multi-site monitoring, intelligent messaging and critical analysis to resolve at-risk orders, capacity constraints, engineering changes or other operational events that inhibit the timely completion of customer orders and notifies all who need to know in time to make a difference.

Its 4C software suite is the first integrated software product designed to provide mid-market manufacturers with information about the status of the manufacturing processes at all times.

"Instead of monitoring the flow of orders from work center to work center, traditional supply chain management systems simply monitor the flow of materials from site to site," explained nMetric CEO Tom Carpenter. "Decisions are made about deliveries without knowing what can be manufactured in time. Our 4C suite provides management with visibility of those variables that impact the timely completion of customer orders."

The new software, reviewed by leading research firms including AMR and Forrester, schedules, monitors, analyzes and optimizes site level activities in real time. It supports live departmental messaging and collaboration with other departments regarding the status of work orders, labor, materials, shops operations, engineering changes and other operational activities.

The 4C suite also manages enterprise-level activities among internal operating divisions in multi-site environments. It supports internal collaboration among sites as well as summarized or consolidated reporting by a plant, company or division in real time. Likewise, the new nMetric 4Csolution monitors market-level activities among customers and suppliers in Web-enabled supply chains, supporting external messaging and collaboration with customers and suppliers. It maintains a timely balance between supply and demand for all manufacturing resources.

"Given the new expectation of speed, created by the Internet, there is a compelling need in the manufacturing sector for our solution," advised Carpenter. "Industry has migrated from a build-to-stock to a build-to-order paradigm. Today's manufacturers must be able to immediately determine their ability to build if the product is not on the shelf.

"Traditional systems, including MRP, ERP, APS and MES, are unable to be responsive to constantly changing order volumes and mixes, design specifications, tooling and fixture shortages, and the many other variables in the manufacturing mix. Our 4C solution responds to these changes, assuring orders are on-time, costs are reduced and margins get increased."

Favorably Reviewed by Leading Analysts

According to AMR, the implementation of Collaborative Manufacturing Execution (CME) best practices -- design-to-manufacturing, manufacturing visibility and supply chain coordination -- requires CME distributed services that connect Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM), Product Lifestyle Management (PLM) workflow capability and MES order tracking logic.

"Tomorrow's manufacturing model will be focused on ... using tools that can provide visibility throughout every level of the supply chain," emphasized Navi Radjour, senior supply chain analyst, Forrester Research. "Manufacturing information systems of the future will automatically detect deviations and respond immediately."

Bill Kirchmier, author of "Finite Capacity Scheduling: Management, Selection and Implementation" for the Oliver Wight Manufacturing Series, added: "The nMetric design delivers the speed and accuracy required to effectively support supply chain management and e-commerce applications. It integrates and coordinates the scheduling functions with real-time tracking and updating of all resources, materials and capacity. This permits evolutionary scheduling that accounts for emerging conditions."

Supply Chain Members Link Without Major Infrastructure Investments

nMetric's 4C suite architecture is designed and implemented using industry standard J2EE, Java and OAG (Open Applications Group) Business Object Definition XML throughout the application, uniquely enabling cross-platform scalability across the enterprise, including all emerging trading exchanges. It easily interfaces with other supply chain software systems. The Web-enabled system is browser independent, utilizes popular Sequel Server or Oracle DBMS, and runs on either NT or UNIX platforms.

nMetric will provide the new 4Csystem through systems integrators and software implementers.

About nMetric

Founded in 2000, nMetric's Collaborative Manufacturing Execution system is the only software that completely oversees all steps of the manufacturing process and supervises the dynamics of the supply chain in real time to accurately predict what will happen. Company headquarters are at 3070 South Bristol Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626. Phone is 888/561-9700. Web site is www.nmetric.com.

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