Software provides performance alerts across enterprise.

Press Release Summary:



FlexNet® collaborative supply network execution software includes Real-time Performance Dashboard extension. Dashboard consists of configurable software applications called Metric Panels that monitor key production and logistics performance indicators in real time, and present continuous, constantly updated display of indicators on computer. Any part of enterprise's workforce can be alerted immediately when performance is out of tolerance.



Original Press Release:



Apriso's Real-Time "Performance Dashboard" Links Enterprise Plant Floor to the Top Floor



Key Performance Alerts and Metrics Available Instantly Across the Enterprise, Anywhere, Anytime, to Anyone

LONG BEACH, CA - October 2, 2003 - Apriso Corporation, the world leader in bottom-out enterprise software, announced today a major extension to its FlexNet® Suite of collaborative supply network execution applications. Dubbed the "Real-time Performance Dashboard", the new capability brings to enterprises the ability to monitor and react to key production and logistics "performance indicators" (KPIs) in real or near-real time.

"Business activity monitoring software, part of a larger family of applications known as 'Corporate Performance Management', is making substantial inroads in enterprises that wish to generate 'scorecards' about how they, or their various processes, are actually performing," said Nelson Nones, vice president and chief product officer of Apriso. "However, a key challenge is the detail and timeliness of the information. As businesses attempt to remain competitive in what is now a global, real-time market, and as they strive to implement lean, demand-driven business processes, they are finding that even waiting until the end of the day for performance or trend data is insufficient."

Companies have been monitoring their own performance for a very long time, said Nones. The earliest "scorecards" - annual or quarterly balance sheets and income statements - have given way to hundreds, if not thousands of internal metrics or KPIs that are gathered from various points in the supply, production and distribution infrastructure of the modern enterprise. However, because of the underlying nature of the software that generates these KPIs, data is typically not available until a daily or even weekly "close". "That's like driving your car without a speedometer, and then learning your speed when the photo-ticket arrives a week later," said Nones "It's too late to correct a trend."

Apriso's Real-time Performance Dashboard is a set of configurable software applications called Metric Panels that monitor production and logistics KPIs in real time, and present a continuous, constantly updated display of these indicators on one or more computer displays. The information is as timely and relevant as are, say, the instrument displays on the panel of a modern jet airliner.

Through the medium of the Metric Panels, any part of the enterprise's workforce can be alerted immediately when the performance of any monitored process is out of tolerance. The KPIs can be generated and/or reported to any business level, from individual machine components to work centers, suppliers, departments, plants, enterprises, or even entire trading groups. Although there are literally hundreds of performance measures to choose from using the Performance Dashboard, most industrial corporations are interested in just a handful that capture the relevant cause-and-effect relationships between actions of individual touch workers or machines on the one hand, and targeted business results on the other.

For example, businesses that want to "lean out" their operations are interested in KPIs such as process efficiency, line balance ratio, days of inventory cover and on-time, in-full (OTIF) delivery. Businesses that are focusing on total productive maintenance are interested in measures such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). And businesses that are pursuing six-sigma quality initiatives are interested in KPIs such as process capability and quality performance. Apriso has provided a wide variety of "built-in" KPIs that meet these immediate needs, permitting users to achieve an extremely fast start at performance monitoring. Offered as Part of FlexNet The Real-time Performance Dashboard is not a standalone application, but rather is offered as an extension to Apriso's popular FlexNet Suite. FlexNet is a broad-spectrum family of collaborative workflow applications, linked by the extended Internet, that enable an enterprise to install, configure, run and refine its production, supply, and distribution processes in real time, and at any level of granularity. Underlying the applications is a database that includes over 21,000 predefined, different data elements, most of which are usable in the definition or calculation of key performance indicators. It is the existence of this unprecedented real-time application and data infrastructure that makes the Real-time Performance Dashboard uniquely possible.

The Dashboard itself consists of a Performance Dashboard Administrator, which is delivered native to (that is, built into) the FlexNet Suite, and three Metric Panels, each of which is available individually. The Administrator is the user's tool for designing real-time KPI reports for the processes of interest. It provides the ability to rapidly identify, design, and deploy reporting systems that direct data to the right people at the right time. The Administrator permits "windows" to be defined that can be opened to any level of detail - from summary "roll ups" to "drill-down" views - providing relevant data to supervisors and shop floor workers alike, based upon their roles and upon user-defined policies. Alerts based upon trends, thresholds, tolerances, or other metrics are easily defined.

"Built-in" KPIs - such as OEE (overall equipment effectiveness), OTIF (on-time, in-full), line balance ratios, takt time, order aging and first-run quality performance - are instantly accessible, depending upon the Metric Panels licensed. Across the three Metric Panels, the Real-time Performance Dashboard provides 44 built-in KPIs. In addition, the user may tailor the definition of these built-in measures, or create entire new measures, using simple and interactive formula builders.

The Metric Panels themselves are the enterprise's windows into its various processes. The Panels track KPIs in scorecard format against the benchmarks defined in the Administrator, in real or near-real time. KPIs can be displayed on a Metric Panels by role, and can remain in the background until anomalies are detected. Users who wish to drill down can analyze underlying performance details using trend charts, as well as a number of pre-defined and ad hoc analytical reports and graphs, or can navigate to more granular data via hyperlinks.

The Metric Panels being offered are "Lean", "Six Sigma", and "Cost". Lean includes 24 built-in KPIs, Six Sigma has 13, and Cost comes with seven. As previously described, all are extensible.

The Metric Panels, like all Apriso FlexNet applications, support multi-lingual localization. They can run in a browser window on any PC, PDA, mobile or wireless device. In addition to its turnkey integration with FlexNet applications, the Real-time Performance Dashboard also integrates easily with third-party applications, such as external portals or KPI reporting tools, using industry standard XML.

The panels and the Administrator all feature simple, intuitive interfaces designed for "end users", and supervisors and workers alike can be expected to become adept at their use.

Availability
Companies wishing to investigate Apriso's Real-time Performance Dashboard should contact Apriso for further details and availability. As is characteristic of all FlexNet bottom-out applications, the Performance Dashboard can be installed in a very localized area, and then "grown" outwards to incorporate more processes, at whatever rate the company finds practical. Data sheets are available at http://apriso.com/en-us/forms/download.html.

About Apriso
Apriso is the world leader in "bottom-out" enterprise software - a new paradigm for today's "execution" economy. Apriso's FlexNet® Suite provides the world's first Web-services-based, end-to-end, real-time, event-driven application suite focused entirely on an enterprise's global supply, production, and distribution processes. Apriso uniquely provides its customers the means to transition to a real-time, demand-driven, adaptive business model based upon total visibility (including RFID, compliance, and others), borderless collaboration, and the principles of six sigma and lean supply.

Apriso was founded in 1992, and now operates in 11 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. World headquarters are in Long Beach, California. Apriso's rapidly-growing customer base of more than 140 customers and over 350 installations worldwide includes such high-profile, global companies as General Motors, Honeywell, Microsoft, Merck, Lockheed Martin, ITT, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, International Paper, Rubbermaid, Matsushita Avionics Systems, Saint-Gobain, Pechiney, and British American Tobacco. A complete customer list can be found at: http://apriso.com/en-us/customers/customer_list.html.

The company has received a total of $20.9 million in two rounds of venture funding. Investors include 75 Wall Street Technology Partners, CMEA Ventures, LogiSpring Investment Fund, SAP Ventures, and Brentwood Venture Capital.

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