RFID POISED TO CATALYZE LEAN, ADAPTIVE ENTERPRISES BY ENABLING ENTIRELY NEW PROCESSES

You Just Need the Software, says Apriso Co-founder and CTO

(San Diego, CA - March 11, 2004) - Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a very hot technology, rapidly gaining market share as standardized forms of the technology are introduced and as production costs fall. Because it eliminates the need for manual data entry and scanning, RFID is often thought of as simply an electronic bar-code replacement. But this is a naive view, says Chris Will, chief technology officer and co-founder of enterprise software maker Apriso Corporation, who spoke here yesterday at the Industrial Wireless Applications Summit and Showcase 2004. RFID, maintains Will, is actually poised to become a major catalyst for significant change in business processes among the enterprises in the extended supply network.

The key, says Will, lies in combining the location sensing capabilities of RFID technology with dynamic, real-time, event-driven software processes for carrying out production, logistics, quality control and maintenance tasks in a collaborative fashion, across a plant, or around the globe.

"Too much attention is focused on the nuts and bolts of RFID technology," says Will. "What RFID truly is, is an enabler for entirely new business processes or models. It just takes the right software to make this happen."

As an example, Will describes a "smart warehouse" incorporating RFID location sensing technology and an event-driven applications software platform that integrates the RFID information in real time with inventory management applications. "A forklift driver can be directed by a wireless display to the exact location of needed inventory. Thereafter, the forklift can be tracked in real time as the inventory is moved, and the driver even can even be alarmed if he attempts to deliver it to the wrong location." This model, says Will, can be extended to applications such as in-line production sequencing or traceability, where knowing the exact location of an assembly or component in real time is vital." And, he adds, with the incorporation of GPS (global positioning system) receivers in tags, "inventory" can be tracked globally, even when on a ship or truck.

Such "out of the box" thinking, says Will, is made possible by the recent emergence of event-driven, process and workflow software applications that can effectively utilize the flood of real-time RFID data to drive such novel processes. "Basic RFID technology can tell you 'what' and 'when', and with standards-based middleware such as SAVANT, 'where' a tagged item may be. But with the right applications software, this can be extended to 'who', 'how', and 'why'." Such dynamic control and observation of processes will be critical, concludes Will, to enterprises seeking to become more adaptive, demand-driven businesses based upon real-time, global collaboration and the principles of lean supply.

The Industrial Wireless Applications Summit and Showcase attracts engineers, plant managers, manufacturing personnel and buyers worldwide who are deeply involved in leading-edge plant processes and equipment.

About Apriso
Apriso is the pioneer of a significant, new class of enterprise software that for the first time enables corporations to define, operate, and monitor supply, production and distribution processes in real time, without limits. Using an event-driven, distributed services model, Apriso's software provides such fine-grained visibility and control of both execution processes and key performance indicators that it is an ideal platform for accomplishing the most pressing business initiatives of today: compliance, product genealogy, in-line production sequencing, real-time, RFID-based asset management, lean supply, successive refinement (kaizen), six-sigma quality levels, demand-driven supply (the "Dell" model), and the adaptive enterprise.

Apriso's software, known as FlexNet®, integrates quickly, easily and naturally into an enterprise's existing software infrastructure, and effectively extends the scope of systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) into the furthest reaches of the extended production and supply network, as required. But unlike these systems, that are based upon a top-down, plan-driven operations orientation, Apriso's event-driven, process-based architecture accommodates any operational model that is based upon real-time collaboration between execution processes, real-time visibility into performance, or the requirement to define, refine, or immediately control workflows throughout the enterprise, and across borders.

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 400 installations worldwide includes such high-profile, global companies as General Motors, Lear, Honeywell, Microsoft, Merck, Lockheed Martin, ITT, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, International Paper, Rubbermaid, Matsushita Avionics Systems, Saint-Gobain, Pechiney, and British American Tobacco.

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