Sao Paulo-based Sigma Technologies specializes in advanced technology services for Brazil’s leading OEM and EMS electronics manufacturing companies. Sigma recently purchased iLaunch software from Aegis after identifying that their NPI process would greatly benefit from improved speed, accuracy and control. Their review of offerings from Aegis Software and competing suppliers had indicated that only Aegis could deliver the speed of conversion and control of processes that they sought.

Sigma was looking for comprehensive CAD/BOM import with error corrections, rapid conversion to intelligent data, and revision control for documentation and programming. Accordingly, they found that Aegis’ iLaunch software allows rapid and accurate conversion of CAD/BOM data to revenue producing products with secure revision control.

iLaunch’s Juki IS interface and accurate Juki IS programming capabilities were major influences in Sigma’s decision. Juki IS is itself an intelligent manufacturing software package designed to optimize and streamline production on the shopfloor. The interface with iLaunch allows the Juki manufacturing environment to be closely integrated into Sigma’s NPI strategies.

iLaunch’s features optimize the assembly definition process, while generating quality information and  manufacturing instructions from CAD/BOM data. Its single environment supports instruction sequences for system and mechanical assemblies as well as graphical visual aids for circuit card assembly. Product and version control is maintained, data integrity is verified and discrepancies are corrected before reaching production. Operators benefit from rapid, flexible generation of paper-based and paperless documentation and visual aids, and receive change notices, process deviations and quality alerts in real time.

Sigma’s key commercial and personal electronics customers include Ericsson, Positivo and LG.  The Company’s core business includes high-tech electronics assembly, and is now moving towards chip manufacturing to be used on memory products, such as smart cards, NAND flashes for mobile phones and flash memories for memory modules.

“Ultimately, our business growth depends on our speed and efficiency in converting design data into deliverable revenue-generating products” commented Wilcar Junho, President of Sigma Technologies. “Accordingly, we chose Aegis and their iLaunch software as the best available route to achieving these objectives”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Carlsbad-based Spectrum Assembly Inc. (SAI) has recently purchased Aegis iLaunch and iView Manufacturing Operation Software modules for their Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) operation. Together, these provide SAI with a distributed, paperless environment to replace their earlier paper-based manufacturing process instructions.  SAI purchased the software after their market investigation revealed it to be the most powerful yet most cost-effective solution available.

 iLaunch allows automated development of text and graphics documentation for the production staff. It will also handle program generation for SAI’s Mydata production equipment, using Gerber files as input. iLaunch’s role is comprehensive, extending to BOM management, component engineering, process route design and other functions essential to new product introduction and modification.

iView works seamlessly with iLaunch, sharing a common SQL database. iView automatically dispatches iLaunch-generated documentation to each workstation under revision control. It can also broadcast change notices, process deviations and quality alerts throughout the system immediately on request. The documentation, being electronic, is interactive; operators can drill down to access more detailed information or visual aids as required.

SAI uses advanced technology to ensure precise, on-time deliveries. The company has particular expertise in external medical devices, backed by ISO 13485:2003 certification and State of California registration for medical device manufacture. Their service is complete as well as responsive, encompassing PCB assembly, cable and wire harness assemblies and entire box builds.

Their paper documentation comprised three copies: one for the master file, another for Quality Control and the third for the shop floor. Managing these without loss or damage to the documents, or loss of correlation between them, became a major challenge as customer demand for low volume runs of complex assemblies has steadily increased. These rapidly-changing conditions motivated SAI’s market survey, which identified the Aegis modules as their ideal solution.

Configuration of SAI’s Aegis software will be managed by a single Sustaining Manufacturing Engineer. A key feature of Aegis is that he will not require any programming expertise for this role, being free instead to focus entirely on optimising and updating production data to fulfil the fast-changing manufacturing workload. Over time, the system will be deployed across all of SAI’s production areas; small cable assembly, large cable assembly, PCB assembly and box building.

“In our industry, quality and responsiveness are critical.  With Aegis,  we now have a system where  a single securely managed document can be generated or modified by our Engineering team from anywhere in our facility, and instantly distributed through a controlled environment to the right workstations across the shop floor” commented Wally Johnson, SAI’s VP of Sales and Marketing.  “The Aegis system and the process we’ve developed around it allows us to be as responsive, if not more so, than anyone in our industry.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Universal Instruments announces an agreement under which Aegis Software is now Universal’s front-end NPI software provider. This collaboration complements Universal’s industry-leading Dimensions® online NPI software with Aegis’ powerful CAD/CAM NPI tools.

Aegis develops software systems to maximize the efficiency and productivity of electronics manufacturers. Aegis solutions are dedicated to improving speed, control and visibility in the production environment. The company delivers these benefits by transforming product, process, materials, and run-time production data into a view of total manufacturing intelligence. Jason Spera, Aegis Chief Executive Officer, looks forward to an extended relationship with Universal, “This is an affiliation that makes a lot of sense for both companies’ products and customers. Our strengths are very much complementary of one another and we share the same markets for these products.” Spera continues, “The two companies currently have over 100 joint customers across 41 countries.”

The partnership brings a host of new capabilities to help streamline the NPI process for Universal’s customer base, as well as a seamless upgrade path for customers to leverage Aegis’ factory-wide MES systems. “We’re very excited to work with Aegis to enhance our software offering,” comments Universal Vice President of Marketing Debbora Ahlgren. “Aegis is wellestablished at the industry’s forefront in terms of offline NPI tools, winning such awards as Frost and Sullivan’s SMT Company of the Year, EP&P Magazine’s Excellence in Software Award, and Circuits Assembly’s Service Excellence Award for the last ten years.” Ahlgren continues, “By combining their offline NPI tools with our online NPI tools, our customers achieve a feature-rich solution and a distinct competitive advantage.”

The Aegis supplement offers valuable new functionality to bolster Universal’s Dimensions NPI software, including the conversion of CAD, Gerber, ASCii, or centroid data to Universal format in seconds. It also provides the ability to adjust board origins, rotate data, panelize offline, and automatically correct placement rotations. In addition, the new software suite enables Universal’s customers to program across lines from foreign suppliers, generate electronic approvals, and maintain BOM and process revision control.

Dimensions Product Information:
Universal Instruments’ Dimensions Software Suite features powerful NPI solutions to accelerate entry of products into production, and turnkey line management tools that connect Universal placement platforms into the overall manufacturing operation. Dimensions NPI software tools easily import and verify design data, balance production lines, generate optimized programs, and create grouped feeder setups for minimized changeover time.

Dimensions Shop Floor Control Software maximizes ROI by providing visibility into production lines with the Linechart module, and tracking materials and optimizing utilization with the Line Manager module.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Data I/O Corporation, the global leader for programming solutions for semiconductor devices, has partnered with Aegis, a leading manufacturing operations software provider, to deliver comprehensive solutions for end unit traceability, process tracking, and quality management. The two industry leaders are combining their expertise, knowledge and experience to help manufacturing companies streamline their production process plus eliminate operator errors, and the risk of having the wrong flash program written to a given device and assembly.  

“This partnership is about two market leaders with proven credentials coming together to deliver integrated and innovative solutions for manufacturing companies,” says Jason Spera, Chief Executive Officer, at Aegis. “Aegis focuses on solving today’s manufacturing productivity problems, while Data I/O focuses on enabling customers to implement their Intellectual Property into programmable devices through automated programming solutions for electronics manufacturing.”

“We are delighted to partner with Aegis and look forward to combining our solution strengths to provide additional value for manufacturing operations,” says Phil Christenson, Director of Marketing at Data I/O. “With Data I/O and Aegis teaming up, manufacturing companies can truly gain the best of both worlds with an integrated solution.”

Today, manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to ensure that the correct data is flashed into their devices to eliminate scrap and rework. Manufacturers need absolute assurance that the correct program for each assembly is loaded by the programming equipment prior to population of the device on the circuit board.

Data I/O and Aegis will deliver solutions that are designed to overcome these challenges. Aegis solutions are targeted at improving productivity through a range of sophisticated functions – data acquisition and visualization, process tracking and control, quality analysis, document management, reporting and material traceability. Additional features including real-time data dashboards and interactive multimedia will enable manufacturers to accelerate operational speed and agility, while maintaining control.

Data I/O helps manufacturers to eliminate operator errors, reduce the risk of recalls, and reduce programming costs through its RoadRunner 3 and PS Series automated programming solutions with Factory Integration Software (FIS).  FIS Track and Remote modules easily interface with external software systems, including Aegis Software.  FIS Track enables automated collection and export of programming results. This supports traceability, reduces the risk of recalls, and enables decision making that minimizes scrap.  FIS Remote provides remote control of programming commands eliminating operator errors related to job selection and downloads, ensuring that the correct data is programmed into the correct device on each line.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UK – Aegis Europe has launched a new German language version of their website, reinforcing their commitment to Germany and its outstanding position within the European EMS industry. Aegis’ Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS) is a sophisticated toolset allowing manufacturers to bring speed, control and visibility to their entire production process. The new website shows prospective users quickly, easily and in their own language what Aegis can achieve for their particular factory. The site is just as valuable to existing customers seeking additional software modules, either to meet changing demands or to exploit new opportunities arising within their own marketplace.

The German electronics industry features players in automotive, industrial, aerospace, defense, medical, control and instrumentation, high-end telecommunications and other areas. Supporting these with value-added services such as EMS is considered as a core competency and requirement for success within the German market. Flexibility in manufacture, supply and service, and the ability of the EMS provider to respond to changes in expected demand is key to maximising the OEM’s profitability. This is equally true whether the change is to increase production in response to better market performance, or to cut back because of lower sales.

“Germany is a key market for Aegis Europe’s expansion and we continue to see a keen interest from potential customers in our products,” says Aegis Europe MD, Daniel Walls. “The new website should also prove to be a useful resource, giving our customers the information they require in their own language, enabling them to make informed decisions when purchasing additional Aegis Software modules and products.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

EE Technologies, Inc, an ISO/TS 16949:2009 certified Contract Manufacturing partner recently completed a full implementation of Aegis’ Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS). This was effective in fulfilling their strategy to improve efficiencies and quality by streamlining and controlling process planning and launch, process tracking and control, and quality and test management. “Speed, control and visibility are core to competitiveness. We utilize technology to connect data to all of our factory processes for our customers’ benefit”, commented Sonny Newman, President of EE Technologies.

Aegis MOS provides the tools needed by production staff to translate engineering designs into manufacturing documentation. Aegis provides support for virtually every CAD type and simplifies programming of the machines that use the CAD data. It allows EET to automate their revision control processes; it also automates the distribution of information to operator workstations in sufficient detail for quality product building. All of this is achieved with a system which, being paperless, achieves an EET environmental corporate objective.
During manufacturing, materials are related to individual machines and stations at the point-of-use and are electronically validated against job parameters. As units travel through each station, their correct, validated material setup is guaranteed, and each unit then automatically inherits the currently loaded material set. This ensures that the right product is at the right station at the right time for the right job, and provides EET’s customers with total traceability.

Users can now determine where any work order is located throughout the factory in real-time. Customer service often depends on delivering the information they need when they need it. Aegis allows EET to track WIP status and provide predictive job completion times. This is important to EET’s customers. Quality has to be built into any manufacturing process. The Aegis software collects data in real time, providing EET with the information necessary to build the product correctly, verify its quality during production and facilitate corrective actions. This data is also available for reports, visualizations, and real-time dashboards that can be configured and used by EET to constantly improve quality and efficiency. Traceability of every product is also achieved; this allows failures and rejections to be tracked down and eliminated before they become an issue for the customer.

EET’s Director of Operations, Clay McElhany, summarizes Aegis MOS’s benefits: “Investing in technology is just one of the ways we provide world class service to our customers. With Aegis, we have instant visibility of the process and product. We continually improve our processes to be more efficient and provide our customers with the best quality, delivery, and costs.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UK –Aegis Europe announces that Kitron, Scandinavia’s leading Electronics Manufacturing Services provider, has purchased an enterprise license of Aegis’ Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS) to be deployed globally across facilities in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Germany, China and USA.

Kitron will utilize Aegis MOS worldwide for quality management, product/material tracking, paperless work instruction and new product introductions.. Kitron will leverage Aegis’ standards-based data acquisition technology – xLink™ – to gather real-time data from their production/test equipment, and will bridge the entire solution to their existing ERP system using Aegis’ application programming interface (API), xTend™

As a provider of high quality, mission-critical assemblies for the Telecom, Defense, Medical and a variety of other sectors, Kitron demanded a solution that would accelerate NPI, ensure tighter process control, continuously improve quality, and provide a detailed record of the entire manufacturing process, all the way down to the component level. Only Aegis was able to provide this granular level of traceability and rich reporting functionality in a singular system.

“Kitron conducted a thorough multi-vendor evaluation, and we are very pleased that they have selected Aegis based on our system functionality, core technology, and superior return-on-investment”, commented Daniel Walls, Managing Director of Aegis Europe. “They are committed as an organization at all management levels to leverage the full capabilities of our software, and we are excited to have them as a customer. We are proud to be part of their increasingly successful operation.”

About Kitron

Kitron is a leading international EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) provider for the Data/Telecoms, Defense, Energy, Industry, Medical equipment and Offshore/Marine sectors. The company is located in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Germany, China and USA. Kitron had revenue of about 209 million Euros in 2010and has about 1,100 employees.

About Aegis

Aegis systems provide hi-tech manufacturers improved speed, control, and visibility of all aspects of factory operations. Aegis software is deployed in over 1,150 sites worldwide, and is the preferred software partner to more than 35 of the leading manufacturing equipment suppliers.  Aegis solutions offer unique benefits to manufacturers in electronics assembly, medical equipment/device, defense/aerospace, and automotive markets.  As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and winner of 10 consecutive service excellence awards, Aegis consistently leads in customer satisfaction and value by providing deployment, integration, and support of its systems entirely through direct worldwide offices and staff.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Pompano Beach, FL – The recently completed implementation of Aegis Manufacturing Operations Software allows Concept 2 Market, Inc. (C2M) to improve efficiencies and quality by streamlining and controlling process planning and launch, process tracking and control, and quality and test management.

“Factory information visibility and process-wide control is core to competitiveness. We utilize technology to connect data to all of our factory processes”, said Todd Kirkeeng, President of C2M.

Aegis acts as the bridge from Engineering to Manufacturing by readying products for launch. Aegis provides support for virtually every CAD type and simplifies programming of the machines that use the CAD data. Ensuring the documentation is revision controlled, is at the operator’s workstation, and provides the detail required to build quality product is now an automated process. And, it is achieved with the environment in mind through a paperless system, which is a step towards one of C2M’s corporate objectives.

Determining where all the work orders are located throughout the factory is now a matter of accessing real-time information. Customer service often depends on having the information they need when they need it. Aegis allows C2M to track WIP progress and provide predictive job completion times, which is important to C2M’s customers.

Quality has to be a “given” in any manufacturing process. The Aegis software provides C2M with the required information to build the product correctly and to verify the quality while the work is still in process so any corrections can be made.

The Aegis software collects data and puts it into reports, visualizations, and real-time dashboards that are used by C2M to constantly improve quality and efficiency. Traceability of every product is also achieved and allows failures and rejections to be tracked down and eliminated before they become an issue for the customer.

C2M’s CEO and owner, Maria Kirkeeng, summed it up the best when she said, “We want to be the best of the best, which is why we’ve made this investment in technology. We’re taking the necessary steps to constantly improve our processes and efficiency so we can provide our customers with a superior product.”

A privately held, woman-owned, company, Concept 2 Market, Inc. was established in 1994 providing quick-turn, state-of-the-art, technically challenging contract electronic assembly for a growing market. With investment in the latest equipment and continual training for their workforce they are able to provide a local source for leading-edge assembly requirements. C2M serves the aerospace, computer peripheral, military, medical, security and consumer markets for a variety of customers. C2M is ISO 9001:2008 and 13485:2003 (medical) Certified as well as MIL-I-45208 Compliant and a Certified RoHS manufacturer.

Contact: Stephen Ballard, 3000-11 NW 25^th Avenue, Pompano Beach, FL 33069, T: 954.974.0022, E: StephenBallard@C2MFL.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Las Vegas, Nevada - Aegis Software unveils its next industry-first technology in the form of the
only iPad and iPhone integrated manufacturing software system for electronics assemblers.
Visitors to the Aegis booth are entered in an iPad giveaway to celebrate the ultimate factory
speed, control, and visibility solution.
inSite brings simple, instant, and mobile access to quality, WIP, performance, and traceability
information. Forward and reverse traceability is immediately available for viewing and to share
direct from your device via email. View active WIP, shipment information, and detect process
bottlenecks. Quality Paretos with interactive drill-down all the way from customer level through
product and down to individual pin information. inSite even recalls and displays the product
image directly on your device. The massive reservoir of process, product, and materials
information within the Aegis MOS system is now accessible right in the palm of your hand.
Since 2000, Aegis has led the technology in manufacturing operations software. First to offer a
web-based MES system. First to use IPC standards for machine monitoring. First make
reporting and dashboard creation simple for the customer. First to integrate and project through
NSA-level 128 bit security. Still the only to offer a singular system spanning NPI through shop
floor control, materials verification, quality, test, packout, dashboards, and reporting built by one
company. And now, the unparalleled information within the Aegis Manufacturing Operations
System is accessible via iPad and iPhone applications now available on the Apple App Store
free of charge to Aegis customers.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

JUKI and AEGIS Software announce a unique integration of JUKI’s new Intelligent Shop Floor Solutions software package (IS) with CircuitCAM Express for fast data preparation and facility-wide programming.

JUKI’s IS software package provides managers, supervisors and engineers with the tools required to run the most efficient production possible, and has been seamlessly integrated with AEGIS’ CircuitCAM Express, now branded as NPI Plus. This seamless integration provides a full set of CAD importers and Gerber processing with direct library management access to IS for graphical part matching and machine angle verification. Additionally, a feeder setup report for viewing the part as loaded in the feeder.

“The integration of CircuitCam Express NPI Plus into our IS software gives us the ability to provide a complete software and hardware solution for our customers from the prototype process to high- volume production.  This is of great benefit to our customers and is a reflection of the strong relationship that Juki has with Aegis.” said Juki Marketing Manager, Geron Ryden. 

“This unique programmatic bridge between the two software platforms delivers the overall experience and capability customers want. Their usage experience appears as a singular software system, while, in fact, they are leveraging the core competencies of both JUKI and Aegis. The result is ease of use, rapid data preparation, and all the line optimization and management benefits only the machine manufacturer can effectively provide,” adds AEGIS CEO, Jason Spera.

About JUKI

Juki Corporation’s experience as the market leader in industrial sewing machines was the stepping-stone for the entry into the printed circuit board assembly market in 1987. Since then, Juki has delivered more than 24,000 automated assembly systems worldwide and is currently shipping an average of 200 assembly machines per month. This extraordinary achievement makes Juki one of the world’s leading providers of automated assembly products and

systems. In addition to its core technologies, Juki’s Electronic Assembly and Test Systems Division develops and manufactures advanced electronic systems and computer software for data entry, mail processing and other electronic equipment. For more information about Juki, visit www.jas-smt.com.

About Aegis

Aegis systems provide hi-tech manufacturers improved speed, control, and visibility of all aspects of factory operations so they can do more with less. Today, manufacturers must maintain fewer assets, but achieve more utilization. They require less cost, but faster product launches and reporting, as well as less overhead, but total traceability. The Aegis Manufacturing Operations System (MOS) supports these goals, and delivers them in a way that defines and contains the investment required to complete the full system deployment.

The Aegis system speeds process planning and launch, controls shop floor materials, delivers all documentation paperlessly, tracks and controls the process, manages test and quality, and makes everything traceable and visible through built-in reporting, analytics and real-time dashboards. Aegis provides one system on one database—created, deployed, and supported by one vendor. The company improves manufacturing operations in more than 1,000 installed sites worldwide, and is the preferred software partner to more than 34 of the leading manufacturing equipment suppliers.  Aegis solutions offer unique benefits to manufacturers in electronics assembly, medical equipment/device, defense/aerospace, and automotive markets.  A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Aegis consistently leads in customer satisfaction and value by providing deployment, integration, and support of its systems entirely through direct worldwide offices and staff – a claim validated by ten consecutive years of customer satisfaction awards. For more information about Aegis, please visit www.aiscorp.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

The joint solution will provide manufacturing companies a single quality management solution from the production lines through the business office workflows and into the executive office.

March 10, 2011 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: Aegis Software is partnering with MetricStream Inc., the market leader in enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management solutions, to deliver a unique and comprehensive solution for total quality management across a manufacturing enterprise. The solution combines Aegis’ shop-floor and process-level quality system with MetricStream’s solutions for CAPA, regulatory compliance, supplier quality and enterprise-wide quality management and assurance. The two industry leaders will combine their expertise, knowledge and experience to help manufacturing companies improve quality and productivity, resolve issues proactively, and enhance operational visibility.

“This partnership is about two market leaders with proven credentials coming together to deliver integrated and innovative solutions for manufacturing companies,” says Jason Spera, Chief Executive Officer, at Aegis. “Aegis focuses on managing, optimizing, monitoring, and tracing the entire scope of manufacturing processes, while MetricStream specializes in optimizing quality processes and streamlining quality management across the enterprise. The combination gives manufacturers true top-to-bottom quality control and visibility from the executive office to the processes on the factory floor.”

“We are delighted to partner with Aegis and look forward to combining our solution strengths to provide additional value for manufacturing operations,” says Gaurav Kapoor, Chief Operating Officer at MetricStream. “With MetricStream and Aegis teaming up, manufacturing companies can truly gain the best of both worlds with an integrated solution.”

Today, manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to improve operational speed and agility. At the same time, they have to ensure that their products are of the highest quality, complying with standards such as ISO 9000. This can be extremely challenging as products become more complex, customer demands increase and business operations expand to new corners of the world.

MetricStream and Aegis will deliver solutions that are designed to overcome these challenges. Aegis solutions are targeted at improving productivity through a range of sophisticated functions – data acquisition and visualization, process tracking and control, quality analysis, document management, reporting and material traceability. Aegis software is built upon a CAD-intelligent backbone, enabling rich, in-depth analysis of each product. Additional features including real-time data dashboards and interactive multimedia will enable manufacturers to accelerate operational speed and agility, while maintaining control.

MetricStream’s Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA), Non-Conformance Management (NCM) and Supplier Quality Management solutions ensure that quality management processes are streamlined and companies can demonstrate compliance to various regulatory standards and industry requirements. Built on an integrated platform, these solutions streamline quality management across suppliers, operations, business units, departments and geographies. In the process, operational silos can be broken down in favor of enterprise-wide collaboration. The system helps identify quality process and nonconformance issues, and then manages the workflow and collaboration of the investigation and remedial cycle. Powerful capabilities including centralized dashboards, reporting tools and risk maps provide in-depth visibility and information on the Quality Management process. Embedded best practices, automated workflows and alerts make the entire process predictable, thus enabling manufacturers to stay ahead of quality demands.

About Aegis
Aegis systems provide hi-tech manufacturers improved speed, control, and visibility of all aspects of factory operations. Aegis software is deployed in over 1,150 sites worldwide, and is the preferred software partner to more than 35 of the leading manufacturing equipment suppliers. Aegis solutions offer unique benefits to manufacturers in electronics assembly, medical equipment/device, defense/aerospace, and automotive markets. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and winner of 10 consecutive customer satisfaction awards, Aegis consistently leads in delivering value by providing deployment, integration, and support of its systems entirely through direct worldwide offices and staff.

About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as Pfizer, Philips, NASDAQ, UBS, SanDisk, Subway, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Cummins in diverse industries such as Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Automotive, Food, High Tech Manufacturing, Energy and Financial Services to manage their quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as by over a million compliance professionals worldwide via the www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at http://www.metricstream.com

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

High Wycombe, UK, January 21st, 2011 – Aegis Software, a leading provider of Manufacturing Operations Systems, has appointed Christian Teasdel as Sales Director for UK and Benelux. Aegis’ expanding business across Europe requires dedicated management attention to key regions. Mr. Teasdel’s appointment enables the organization to better fulfil Europe’s growing demand for factory-wide manufacturing information systems.

Christian Teasdel has been part of Aegis Software since 2004. His past roles included applications engineering, Customer Services Manager, and Technical Director. His current role is to increase sales in the already strong UK and Benelux regions working both directly and through sales channels as well as OEM partners, while freeing resources in the organization for Aegis’ expansion into new markets within Europe. Mr. Teasdel has an engineering background and in-depth experience in NPI since 1992 in various SMT companies.

Aegis enjoys a strong presence in Europe with approximately 15% of its 1100+ factory sites. The Company is seeing a steadily growing MES-system installed base both through upgrading existing NPI users as well has new customers finding the Aegis solution very well suited for the European manufacturing market.

About Aegis
Aegis systems provide hi-tech manufacturers improved speed, control, and visibility of all aspects of factory operations so they can do more with less. Today, manufacturers must maintain less assets, but achieve more utilization. Less cost, but faster product launches and reporting. Less overhead, but total traceability. The Aegis Manufacturing Operations System (MOS) supports these goals, and is delivered in a way that defines and contains the investment required to complete the full system deployment.

The Aegis system speeds process planning and launch, controls shop floor materials, delivers all documentation paperlessly, tracks and controls the process, manages test and quality, and makes everything traceable and visible through built-in reporting, analytics and real-time dashboards. One system, on one database—created, deployed, and supported by one vendor.

Aegis improves manufacturing operations in more than 1,100 installed sites worldwide, and is the preferred software partner to more than 35 of the leading manufacturing equipment suppliers. Aegis solutions offer unique benefits to manufacturers in electronics assembly, medical equipment/device, defence/aerospace, and automotive markets. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Aegis consistently leads in customer satisfaction and value by providing deployment, integration, and support of its systems entirely through direct worldwide offices and staff. A claim validated by 10 consecutive years of customer satisfaction awards. For more information on Aegis, please visit www.aiscorp.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA - MYDATA and AEGIS Software announce major enhancements to offline machine programming support. TPSys Live, a new option within Aegis’ machine interface for MYDATA placement equipment, provides a synchronized database connection to MYDATA’s TPSys database, yielding the most effective and accurate means for offline programming. The refreshed interface leverages the TPSys Live connection through its ‘New Component Setup’ wizard that visually presents CAD shapes and TPSys packages side-by-side and intelligently ranks suitable package candidates for unknown part numbers.

“We are pleased with the continuous innovations that AEGIS, our partner of 12 years, has developed for MYDATA” said Product Manager, Mattias Jonsson. “Our customers are able to seamlessly program their MYDATA equipment through an elegant direct database connection, and add new components directly into the TPSys library. The smart package selection allows users the added benefit of seeing the graphical comparison before a part is even placed. This will dramatically cut the time needed to program a new board.” 

“MYDATA has been a partner and customer to AEGIS for more than a decade. A partnership resulting in more than 340 mutual customers and counting. It is critical for both companies to keep our integration at the leading edge for this large installed base as well as future customers. The combination of MYDATA’s progressive software thinking that surrounds their machines and Aegis’ leading enterprise-wide systems makes for a powerful joint solution for customers. ” adds AEGIS CEO, Jason Spera.

About MYDATA
MYDATA designs, manufactures and markets SMT process equipment for the electronics industry. Its mission is to be always innovating – in order to satisfy the electronic industry’s need for surface mount technology and services that meet the highest demands in terms of productivity and quality.

Based on a modular hardware and software design, MYDATA equipment has been developed for flexibility and high-yield production over time. By focusing on faster changeovers and set-ups, and on achieving the lowest possible cost per mounted component, MYDATA has built a strong customer base and long-term relationships with customers in countries throughout the world. 

Sweden-based MYDATA has a worldwide sales and customer support network with subsidiaries in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, China and Singapore.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA - Aegis Software is pleased to announce the expansion of their business relationship with Rich Sales Inc. Rich Sales representative territory now includes the states of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the country of Mexico.

John Weber, Aegis Regional Sales Manager, commented, “Rich Sales has historically performed well in its territorial sales responsibilities and Aegis Software is pleased that the company has accepted the offer to expand its territory. They offer Aegis customers sales and support offices with an extensive and impressive list of engineers and support personnel located in our customers local markets. Aegis customers in the expanded territory can expect superior pre-sales and post-sales support through the Rich Sales offices.”

Richard Rich, Rich Sales Managing Partner, stated, “ With watching Aegis grow in popularity with our customers in our Arizona and New Mexico territories, we are pleased to be able to offer our sales force in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mexico the ability to represent such a fine and technologically advanced company to our customer base. Rich Sales and its 24 sales personnel thank Aegis Software for this opportunity.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Aegis Software announces an OEM agreement with JUKI Automation Systems AG, a leading supplier of high-quality, automated assembly equipment for surface mount applications to the European and African market. Under this agreement, JUKI will offer Aegis NPI software for BOM, CAD, Gerber, and even scanned board data conversion with their world-class line level management and optimization software. This agreement with JUKI Automation Systems AG was a logic extension of an existing and well functioning cooperation, which was started-up between Aegis and Juki Automation System Inc, covering the American market, many years ago.

Alain Meyer, Product Manager of JUKI Automation Systems AG, said, "We are very excited about partnering with Aegis. This package delivers our customers the benefits of the industry’s most proven tool for data preparation. They will be prepared for any BOM or CAD data they receive, and have the power to quickly and perfectly prepare it for seamless integration between the systems. Packaging Aegis NPI technology in this way also gives our customers the value of a future path to a larger solution. They can build on any JUKI Software installation to the factory-wide Aegis Manufacturing Operations System should they wish in the future.”

“Aegis is proud to become an integral part of the JUKI offering via this partnership.” commented, Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “JUKI Automation Systems has taken a very important step for their customers. By combining the value of the most popular NPI software on the market with their own line management software, they give the customer a truly best-in-class solution in a simplified, cost effective way. We are pleased to deliver Aegis NPI technologies through our partner JUKI Automation Systems AG.”

About JUKI Automation Systems AG
JUKI Automation Systems AG is a supplier of Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Pick & Place solutions for the electronics manufacturing industry. JUKI AG is a trustworthy partner, providing full application support, training and services. We offer a product that can be easily integrated into your manufacturing environment, ensuring your equipment runs competitively at all times.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Aegis Software announces the successful deployment of its Manufacturing Operations Software at Teledyne EMS of Lewisburg, Tennessee, a full service electronic contract manufacturing supplier. Teledyne EMS, a recognized leader in providing sophisticated electronic assemblies that meet the outsourcing needs for the defense and commercial communities chose Aegis after an exhaustive evaluation of different systems.

Their Aegis deployment provides Teledyne expedited process planning and launch using their customers’ CAD and BOM data, shop floor WIP tracking, and quality and test management. This information from the shop floor execution system supports Teledyne’s continuous improvement through Aegis’ real-time dashboards and reporting capabilities.

Teledyne found that Aegis was the optimum solution for their environment. Their defense and commercial market customers are particularly demanding in their expectations for ECO frequency and supporting limited prototype runs. Their dense and exotic designs make quality control and traceability of paramount importance. Aegis’ ability to handle such demanding high-mix and ever-changing production requirements while maintaining throughput and efficiency was of key importance to Teledyne. Traceability and visibility without additional overhead was the goal and it has been achieved.

Other factors also compelled Teledyne EMS' to select Aegis, particularly their proven record and installation base. "The selection of a manufacturing information system to support an entire manufacturing enterprise is as important as an ERP selection," said Norm Wolstein, General Manager Teledyne EMS. "Beyond the functional capabilities, we needed a partner with proven performance and experience. Aegis came to our enterprise with over 1000 installations worldwide, is partner to most of our machine vendors, and sent in a team of experts to make certain the deployment program would proceed efficiently and conclude successfully. Now that their system is an integral part of our operation, we are glad that we partnered with Aegis,” he adds.

"The best evidence of the value of any system brought into a plant is whether you continue to invest in it," said Don Cook Manufacturing Engineering Manager, at Teledyne Electronic Manufacturing Services. "After our successful deployment in a particular set of production cells, we are continuing the rollout of Aegis into other customer-centric sections of the operation," Cook adds.

Teledyne invested in almost all modules of the Aegis system. The solution expedites their NPI process in the engineering office, dispatches paperless instructions to their shop floor stations, tracks product movement, collects quality and test information, guides repair, and makes all information available through real-time user-configured dashboards and historical reports. "Teledyne EMS approached the evaluation and their deployment in a manner that enabled Aegis to deliver them a solid solution," commented Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis Software. "They committed as an organization at all levels to really leverage the capabilities of the system they purchased, and worked as a team with Aegis’ deployment services personnel. We are pleased to have them as a customer and proud to be part of their increasingly successful operation."

About Teledyne
Teledyne Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) is a full service electronic contract manufacturing supplier. Teledyne EMS is a recognized leader in providing sophisticated electronic assemblies that meet the outsourcing needs for the defense and commercial communities. Teledyne provides a complete spectrum of engineering, manufacturing and test services, as well as, supply chain, material and program management. For more information, visit www.teledyne.com.

 

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Buckinghamshire UK, April 2010 - Aegis Software announces that its New Product Introduction and shop-floor paperless documentation system has been selected by Makso Electronic BV for their manufacturing site in Veenendaal, The Netherlands. Their deployment integrates all of operations from New Product Introduction through documentation version control and viewing on the production floor. Through use of Aegis’ singular system architecture, their process planning, documentation and programming functions are unified with shop-floor document delivery and control. This delivers Makso both world-class NPI velocity and work instruction management. Their engineering offices turn jobs and ECO’s rapidly while operators have version-assured access to CAD-intelligent and visual work instructions across the entire process scope.

Makso Electronic has long been a top EMS provider in The Netherlands. The company designs, develops, documents and manufactures complex electronics and electromechanical products for the industrial and commercial sectors. Makso Electronic selected the most widely deployed and proven NPI and paperless shop floor documentation system available, ensuring their success.

“We chose Aegis as our partner for their proven track record and technology. Choosing the right system for managing our incoming customer data and shop floor documentation was critical to us. Aegis technology certainly met our functional requirements. We also demanded a good business partner. With over 1100 installed factories and 35 machine vendor endorsements, we have the assurance that comes with partnering with a market leader.” commented Ton Ten Hove owner of Makso Electronic.

Christian Teasdel, Sales Director for UK and Benelux of Aegis Software Europe commented, “We are honoured to have earned the business of Makso Electronic for further improving the efficiency and control of their operations. We also look forward to growing their deployment with them in the future. This new business further highlights Aegis’ market share and commitment to the Benelux region”

About Makso Electronic
Makso Electronic is a leading provider of EMS within The Netherlands and specialises in high-tech and consumer electronics utilising the latest in SMD production equipment as well as highly trained and motivated staff for conventional build. Makso Electronic is a ISO 9001 approved company. The Company is based in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, more information can be found at www.makso.nl

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

APEX 2010, LAS VEGAS, NV – Aegis Industrial Software (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Operations Systems was pleased to accept top honors for Service Excellence from UP Media Group Inc., for the tenth consecutive year.

Presented annually at APEX, the Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) are presented by Circuits Assembly magazine to companies that receive the highest customer service ratings as judged by their own customers. The award is derived from responses to in-depth online surveys where customers are asked to evaluate the participants’ dependability, ease of use, responsiveness, technology, and overall value for the price. Aegis took the title in the Manufacturing / Supply Chain Management Software category with a service rating of 4.8 out of a possible 5 virtually eliminating the competition. The award has been presented a total of 10 times and has been won by Aegis every year it has been offered.

"We are honored to be recognized for the tenth consecutive year by our customers,” said Brian Backenstose, Aegis Vice President of Services. “Our Service Division's commitment to going above and beyond the needs of our customers is the reason we’ve held this honor for so long. We intend to continue our dedication to our clients needs for many years to come."

 

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

APEX 2010, LAS VEGAS, NV  – Aegis Software announces its selection and deployment as the global manufacturing process software for Sanmina-SCI, a leading global Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) company. While the business agreement for this selection was completed over a year ago, Aegis and Sanmina-SCI chose to wait to make this announcement until the successful deployment of the platform in the majority of printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) facilities across Sanmina-SCI’s enterprise. This announcement is tangible evidence that Sanmina-SCI selected the right partner for its global manufacturing software.

Aegis was chosen after a year-long evaluation of competitive software offerings conducted in real-world trials within Sanmina-SCI’s Guadalajara, Mexico facility. This evaluation rated ease of use, reliability, the vendor’s deployment capabilities, and programming capability for Sanmina-SCI’s placement, assembly, process, and inspection equipment vendors and models. Sanmina-SCI determined that Aegis offered the most comprehensive programming and visual documentation support delivered via a proven, easy-to-use interface that would expedite adoption and reduce maintenance and training overhead.

"A manufacturing enterprise of Sanmina-SCI’s scale receives great quantities and varieties of incoming data sets from our customers. World-class service means rapidly transforming that data into a fully prepared process while supporting an incredible range of data and machine types," said Philippe Mathevon, Vice President of Sanmina-SCI’s Enterprise IT Services. "Aegis delivered the simplicity, reliability, and breadth of support we required for a smooth rollout across many of our PCBA facilities. There were no surprise costs or labor overhead traditionally associated with an enterprise software implementation. Aegis has been a great partner and we are pleased with the end result,” added Mr. Mathevon.

"Aegis is honored to have been selected by Sanmina-SCI as their manufacturing software platform. Their collaboration with Aegis during the deployment process is a testament to how professionally Sanmina-SCI approaches critical IT infrastructure," commented Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis Software. "In fact, the mutual decision to wait to announce the selection until the deployment was broadly successful shows that Sanmina-SCI is fully aware that many large scale IT system deployments don’t deliver the benefits or deployment efficiency promised. We at Aegis believe in proving our value to our customers and today, we are very pleased that we have delivered what we promised to Sanmina-SCI.”

The Aegis system deployed by Sanmina-SCI expedites new product introduction (NPI) and ECOs. The NPI portion first imports customer CAD and BOM data, cleans errors, and runs comparisons. It then designs the route and creates the machine programs required for the job. The Sanmina-SCI deployment supports program generation for hundreds of unique makes and models of assembly, inspection, and process machines.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

APEX 2010, LAS VEGAS, NV  – Aegis Software announces an industry-first OEM bundling agreement with Fuji America Corporation, a leading supplier of high-quality, automated assembly equipment for surface mount applications. Under this agreement, Fuji America will include Aegis NPI software for BOM, CAD, Gerber, and even scanned board data conversion with each license of Fuji’s world-class line level management and optimization software called Fuji Flexa.

Chip King, Assistant Engineering Manager of Fuji America Corporation said, "FUJI America has made Flexa line management and optimization software and Aegis’ proven NPI system a turn-key solution for our customers. Each Flexa installation will be accompanied by Aegis’ NPI software. This package delivers our customers the benefits of the industry’s most proven tool for data preparation. They will be prepared for any BOM or CAD data they receive, and have the power to quickly and perfectly prepare it for Flexa via direct API integration between the systems. Packaging Aegis NPI technology in this way also gives our customers the value of a future path to a larger solution. They can build on any Flexa installation to the factory-wide Aegis Manufacturing Operations System should they wish in the future.”

“Aegis is proud to become an integral part of the FUJI software offering via this partnership. We were the first to integrate with the Flexa API several years ago, and now our widely deployed technology is becoming an integral part of their Flexa offering.” commented, Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “FUJI America has taken a very important step for their customers. By combining the value of the most popular NPI software on the market as a standard component of their own line management software, they give the customer a truly best-in-class solution in a simplified, cost effective way. We are pleased to deliver Aegis NPI technologies through our partner Fuji America.”

About Fuji America
Fuji America is a supplier of Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Pick & Place solutions for the electronics manufacturing industry. Fuji America is a trustworthy partner, providing full application support, training and services. We offer a product that can be easily integrated into your manufacturing environment, ensuring your equipment runs competitively at all times.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software will unveil the third major release of its Version 7 Manufacturing Operations Software, known as R3, at the 2009 APEX exhibition in Las Vegas. Featured in a unique way this year, the latest generation of the Aegis iMaterials shop-floor materials verification and traceability module will be made available for visitors to operate in a simulated environment.

Visitors to the Aegis booth will setup materials along 3 simulated process stations from a stencil printer to a placement machine and out to manual assembly and box build. To prove the unprecedented ease with which a factory can implement process-wide materials verification and traceability, visitors themselves will use iMaterials browsers to setup process stations perfectly.

iMaterials browsers will guide users visually and through its audio and voice synthesis guidance. A combined technology not seen in the industry before, and one that invalidates forever the assumption that traceability increases overhead. iMaterials delivers traceability, control, and visibility while actually supporting your Lean initiatives and increasing operational throughput.

While visitors are using the system, they will have the opportunity to experience a true shop floor dashboard system as their activities will be reflected in real time on a plasma display. And further—if they want to create their own dashboard, they are welcome to do that as well and watch their own design come alive instantly on the screen.

iMaterials is also unique because it adapts to the way you want it to operate. It us is the first and only shop floor materials control system on the market you design yourself. Aegis revolutionized factory software by enabling customers to build their own reports, analyses, and dashboards without any customization or costs. R3 extends this ‘user-customization’ advantage to shop floor materials verification. Every manufacturer has strong opinions about how best to control shop floor materials, how to setup machines, etc. R3 empowers customers to design the materials setup strategy and tactics their web-based shop floor interface will employ using a simple graphical interface. R3 users have the power to define exactly how the system guides operators, reacts to conditions, and the level of control it enforces. A total step forward as compared to any other setup verification tool on the market. R3 is the only system empowering you to decide how every process will be guided and verified to ensure the right material, is in the right location, for the right product.

Aegis invites you to see for yourself how our technology delivers speed, control and visibility so your factory can excel in these challenging times.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software, the leading developer of Manufacturing Operations System (MOS) software, announces the selection of their system by Express Manufacturing, Inc. (EMI), the largest private contract manufacturer in Orange County, California. EMI chose Aegis software to facilitate process planning and launch as well as manufacturing execution for their plant in Santa Ana, CA. The Aegis system was selected for its unique ability to provide EMI and their customers with total visibility to process-wide quality, WIP, and performance data.

EMI’s new manufacturing information system provides a rapid, direct path from customer CAD and BOM importing and parsing, through to process design, documentation development, and FUJI machine programming. The system then launches products efficiently to their factories, where Aegis provides end-to-end WIP tracking, quality data collection, repair management, and a completely paperless process. The information derived from all of these capabilities is then presented in Aegis real-time ‘iMonitor’ dashboards and reported through Aegis Data Miner.

EMI provides electronics manufacturing services (EMS) for OEM partners, including assembling, integrating, and testing sub-systems and electronic parts, as well as value-based services to customers in the U.S., Europe, Australia and China. The company specializes in helping customers reduce the number of steps from design to production, thereby minimizing cost and time-to-market, and thereby maximizing value.

“EMI is focused on customer satisfaction with responsiveness and efficiency,” offered EMI’s President, Mr. C.P. Chin. “Responsiveness and efficiency in today’s world is more than turning product quickly; it means providing customers information quickly as well. We selected Aegis as our partner because they share our vision of one system over the entire operation with the goal of seeing everything, and getting that information to customers the moment they need it.”

“We are excited to have our system selected enterprise-wide at EMI,” says Aegis CEO Jason Spera. “It’s exciting because EMI has a strong vision of how total process and quality visibility can be used as an additional competitive edge in a quick-turn and constantly changing business – a business that traditionally has difficulty meeting customer data demands. We are pleased to be the software system they use to distinguish themselves.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software will unveil the third major release of its Version 7 Manufacturing Operations Software, known as R3, at the 2009 APEX exhibition in Las Vegas. The system will be officially released to the Aegis customer base for deployment immediately following the exhibition.

R3 builds upon the success of the Version 7 manufacturing operations system that has been delivering unmatched speed, control and visibility to factories worldwide for more than a year. Key updates in R3 include:

* The Next Evolution of the Class-Defining Version 7 MOS System: R3 incorporates hundreds of customer-driven enhancements to the Aegis Manufacturing Operations System. Enhancements spanning the process planning and launch engine, paperless delivery, product tracking, quality collection and repair, dashboards, and analytics areas of the system. In particular, R3 adds a fully redesigned shop floor materials control interface. Aegis has also added many real-time xLink data collection adapters, further advancing its plug-and-play connectivity to assembly, process, inspection, and test assets.

* A Shop Floor Materials Control System You Design Yourself: Version 7 revolutionized factory software by enabling customers to build their own reports, analyses, and dashboards without any customization or costs. R3 extends this ‘user-customization’ advantage to shop floor materials verification. Every manufacturer has strong opinions about how best to control shop floor materials, how to setup machines, etc. R3 empowers customers to design the materials setup strategy and tactics their web-based shop floor interface will employ using a simple graphical interface. R3 users have the power to define exactly how the system guides operators, reacts to conditions, and the level of control it enforces. A total step forward as compared to any other setup verification tool on the market. R3 is the only system empowering you to decide how every process will be guided and verified to ensure the right material, is in the right location, for the right product.

* Dispatch-Side, Job-Level Traceability: R3 adds a new type of traceability to the perfect accuracy of Aegis consumption-side traceability functions, called ‘Job Level’ traceability. R3 provides a kit verification process and assists dispatch to the floor, providing ‘Job Level’ traceability where perfect unit-level traceability is not desired. In addition to simplified traceability at a broad level, the technology assists operators in predicting the unit volume that can be produced for a given kit in real time as it is scanned for dispatch, guides the splitting of bags, reels, and sticks, etc.
* Expanded Box-Build Capability: R3 provides enhanced support for infinitely nested assemblies, and enhanced mechanical CAD support within the paperless, trace, and tracking capabilities of the system.

* Expanded Dashboard and Reporting Capabilities: The explosive success of the Aegis iMonitor and Data Miner systems for real-time dashboards and reporting drove the addition of many new dashboard gauges, charts, and other active elements, as well as new Data Miner sources. Real-time predictive materials usage, job completion, OEE, tooling life monitoring, expiration etc. has all been added. R3 has greater ‘out of box’ dashboard and reporting capability than any system on the market, and as with all Aegis outputs, costs and customization are not required to get the information you need—just click, drag and drop.

* In-Process DPMO: Beyond its fully automatic job and station-level DPMO, R3 now delivers the only viable means to monitor ‘In Process DPMO’ in real-time. The new solution supports nonconformance ‘charge backs’ to root cause, to drive real process analysis by the root source of quality problems, rather than only the location at which they were identified.

* Job Scheduling: R3 adds categorization and ranks to jobs that are on the build horizon, providing shop floor personnel with guidance to their daily build sequence. Job planners may re-categorize and re-order jobs based on its readiness or urgency through the browser interface, by importing an updated job list directly into the system, or through API integration to ERP or scheduling systems in place within the enterprise.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software announces the release of iMonitor 2.0, a system enabling manufacturers to create their own real-time dashboards to monitor the enterprise, factory, and lines in real-time through web browsers. iMonitor offers machine operators, production managers, and executives the power to create unlimited numbers of interactive and real-time production tracking, materials, utilization, and quality dashboards as easily as one would design a PowerPoint slide.

iMonitor represents a real revolution in information visibility by supplying customers with a simple means to custom-configure monitoring dashboards, right out of the box. Dashboards are constructed by dragging-and-dropping ‘gauges’ and ‘charts’ and other active elements into a design view, similar to PowerPoint slide construction, along with user-provided graphics such as line pictures or plant drawings. The user then activates each element by simply indicating the Aegis xLink data source for that machine, tester, station, or area of the process--and the dashboard instantly comes alive in real-time.

To create unlimited drill-down investigation of real-time data, iMonitor works much like a normal website—users link any gauge or chart in one dashboard to another dashboard, creating a ‘dashboard site structure’ for unlimited interactivity.

Many manufacturers want their real-time dashboards running above their lines on flat panel displays. For these applications, iMonitor allows users to build ‘slide shows’ of multiple dashboards that rotate at user-defined time intervals without user interaction—all as easily as making a PowerPoint presentation.

For customers using Aegis’ best-in-class factory-wide Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS), iMonitor’s Mini Dashboards can be made available within any Aegis shop-floor interface to provide each operator whatever real-time information engineers believe would benefit them at each station.

Additionally, iMonitor users may create unlimited numbers of dashboards and store them for viewing on the web. Dashboards can be secured to precisely limit access to particular persons or groups of persons, and do not require ‘refreshing’ as they automatically update their content in real time.

For massive deployments, Aegis invented an architectural technology to minimize server load as usage of dashboards increases in the enterprise. As the number of dashboards opened simultaneously increases, the load on Aegis servers increases at a far lower rate than dashboard technologies of the past.

A sampling of the types of real-time information an iMonitor-empowered enterprise has in real-time right in their web browsers:
 

• Quality: Yield, Paretos, Counts, Standard and In-Process DPMO, DPU
• Materials Depletion: Materials Levels: At Reel, Feeder, Cart, Machine—factory wide.
• Performance/Utilization: state, utilization, CPH, cycle time, production rate, machine faults
• Alarms: view Aegis system alarms instantly for resolution
• Production Control: Factory wide Active WIP by customer, assembly, job, location, revision, etc. predictive job completion, progress, estimated time complete, line completion projections
• Predictive Line Down: number of units, number of components, or time until materials depletion causes a line down condition
• Materials Setup Status: setup condition of every station system-wide
• Tooling Life and PM: usage and remaining total life as well as inter-service life periods for every tool, machine, and fixture, system-wide

“Manufacturers know real-time process information is valuable to everyone from the line operator to the executive, but getting access to this information in an easy, cost effective, and process-wide manner has proven elusive.” says Aegis CEO Jason Spera. “iMonitor 2.0 makes the dream of factory-wide dashboards a reality by empowering the user to build their own dashboards, and connecting them to Aegis’ industry leading data acquisition systems within the factory. By supplying the customer with all the resources they need to be completely self-sufficient from a data visibility standpoint, we offer them an elegant and economical solution—the hallmark of Aegis products. From the early adopters of iMonitor, we have learned the only limit to its enthusiastic adoption is determining how to mount the plasma displays above the lines quickly enough.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software Corp., a leading developer of innovative Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS), announces an expansion of their product implementation at Distron Corporation of Attleboro Falls, Massachusetts. A contract electronics assembler, Distron employs Aegis’ software in their extensive manufacturing lines. This recent enhancement addresses the company’s need for more comprehensive traceability and data acquisition.

Offering both board-level and final assembly services, Distron originally implemented Aegis’ New Product Introduction (NPI) software in late 2006 to streamline the company’s manufacturing process. Due to increasing regulatory requirements for traceability in Distron’s core markets of Medical Device and Aerospace/Defense, and the company’s positive experience with Aegis’ NPI software, the company has implemented Aegis’ full MOS suite in their assembly line. The advanced data acquisition, compilation, and visibility features of Aegis’ MOS are essential to Distron due to a recent expansion to Distron’s manufacturing capabilities and the installation of new SMT assembly systems.

“The solutions provided by Aegis have provided considerable traceability, a very important dynamic in today’s high-reliability markets,” says Distron President Rob Donovan. “The sophisticated data management capabilities inherent in Aegis software and their ability to provide a complete solution made them the ideal choice for our expansion.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA (USA) – Aegis Software announces release of their completely redesigned Version 7.0 Manufacturing Operations System (MOS) Software at APEX 2008. The result of a decade of experience delivering MOS technology for assembly-based manufacturing, V7 advances manufacturing information systems to an unprecedented level, and addresses the growing need in high-reliability markets for comprehensive data visibility and product/process traceability.

V7 builds on the unique Aegis MOS concept of joining process planning and launch technology with factory execution. It also provides “actionable” real-time dashboards and analytics, all within one system and on a single data model. An ‘activity-centric’ web-browser-based interface provides a single access point for all manufacturing operations personnel, and delivers shop floor materials verification, paperless documentation, product tracking, interactive traceability, quality and repair, defect visualization, test and diagnostics, pack-out control, real-time monitoring, SPC, and reporting.

This new user environment provides a new level of productivity-enhancing features to the manufacturing environment while providing greater operator simplicity and speed. It also solves the persistent challenge for manufacturers who require real-time information dashboards, interactive data access, visualization for process improvement, and simplified management reporting.

For actionable data display, Aegis’ new solution offers iMonitor 2.0, enabling users to design their own real-time performance, quality, materials, and production dashboards as easily as they would make a PowerPoint slide. These dashboards come alive on the factory’s plasma monitors and at manager’s desktops, drawing on the real-time data feeds from the standards-based Aegis data acquisition system, xLink.

For interactive traceability, V7 offers an online environment for exploring both forward and reverse traceability. This environment returns exact product content, environmental, machine, process, materials, test, measurement, upper and lower assembly, and shipment data.

For detailed historical analysis, the Aegis Data Miner is a revolutionary means to graphically explore the massive reservoir of Aegis MOS data, visualize this data graphically, and then publish it in a report quickly and easily. This becomes a means to develop any output quickly and easily without ever involving IT personnel, without need for knowledge of SQL, or any need to know the Aegis data model. When engineers or managers need to report to customers or regulators, or if engineering is exploring last month’s performance, V7 eliminates the eternal burden of ‘report design’.

“Aegis V7 is something objectively unique entering the MOS market,” says Aegis CEO Jason Spera. “It is the only singular system spanning planning and process design activities, extending all the way through what is typically called MOS, and including an array of data fulfillment and monitoring systems. This product scope would traditionally require multiple systems and integrators to achieve the same goal. However, with V7, we’ve brought something to the market that has powerful and clear benefits with regard to simplicity, cost, and data availability.”

V7 has been tested during 2007 with selected customers and will be available to the Aegis customer base and the product assembly market in 2008.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

HORSHAM, PA (USA) – Aegis Software Corp., a leading developer of innovative manufacturing execution software (MES), announces the opening of a new Global Headquarters in Horsham, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. The new offices will meet Aegis’ growing workforce demands and provide a unique training environment for the company’s rapidly expanding customer base.

Featured in the new headquarters is the company’s interactive Training Center. This state-of-the-art facility offers customers a hands-on approach using an actual conveyorized production line, test and quality cell, and a complete hand assembly line. These elements surround the trainee stations and are fully equipped with Aegis technology to simulate a real production environment. This affords customers an exceptional learning experience to assist them in launching their own systems.

To improve customer relationships and tracking meeting effectiveness during deployments, this new facility includes a large meeting center with advanced video conferencing. New Aegis customers are provided a video system for use in their factories as part of Aegis’ continuous improvement of its award winning service.

Adjacent to the Training Center, customers can grab a cup of coffee, check email in secure Internet and phone work carrels, call the office, or relax in the Customer Video Lounge, which keeps Aegis customers comfortable and productive during their visit to the Training Center.

“In addition to supplying us with a more modern and spacious workspace, the new headquarters helps us show our customers how to leverage our solutions fully in their manufacturing environment” says Aegis CEO Jason Spera. “It is due to the success our clients are having with our products that we needed to expand in the first place, so we thought we should certainly build them a world-class training and meeting center in our new headquarters.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UK – Aegis Software (Europe) Ltd. (Aegis), the leader in manufacturing information management systems, has recently appointed Daniel Walls as its new European Managing Director and moved its Europe Headquarters to Buckinghamshire, UK due to its reaffirmed long-term commitment to the European Electronic Manufacturing Industry.

The new Aegis Europe Headquarters, situated near the town centre of High Wycombe, contains an enlarged training center and a new sophisticated video conferencing system. The enlarged training center allows customers greater flexibility in scheduling and attending local trainings while the state-of-the-art multipoint video conferencing system has been deployed to improve communications with customers and between regional offices. The new facility also includes a single global IP phone system enabling easier call control and routing to remote personnel, regional offices and improved conferencing.

Aegis also appointed Daniel Walls as its new European Managing Director. Originally employed at its North American headquarters by its founding members; Mr. Walls has handled a diverse array of responsibilities and has been a vital contributing member to Aegis’ successful growth and development since its inception. Since 1997, Mr. Walls joined Aegis as its first full-time Controller and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Walls has also served as a Regional Sales Manager, helped create Aegis’ North American West Coast Operations in Irvine, California and created and managed Aegis’ Services Division which has won seven consecutive customer service awards.

“Aegis sees Europe as a very important manufacturing market,” said Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “Our new Europe Headquarters, along with appointing Mr. Walls as the new European Managing Director confirms our commitment and ensures manufacturers in Europe the same high level of customer service and quality products already in use all around the world.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in manufacturing information management systems, and Practical Components Inc. (Practical), the leading supplier of dummy components, have partnered to offer a new and innovative traceability and control kit designed to validate manufacturing process and provide the potential for rich product and process traceability detail. The kit is the first measurement tool for manufacturers to validate their plants’ traceability and control based on Aegis’ proven methods of rating traceability. The Aegis Traceability and Control Validation Kit will be available for purchase in the new 2007 Practical Components Catalog, which is designed to help engineers quickly find the key products needed to qualify their assembly technology.

“Traceability and process control are no longer requirements reserved for manufacturers in regulatory or specific market segments,” said Bob Miklosey, Aegis VP of Product Management. “Today, manufacturers who aspire to achieve or to maintain ‘world class’ status must deliver some degree of traceability, and until now, there has not existed a common language regarding the nature of traceability or its levels.”

The new Aegis Traceability & Control Validation Kit provides the physical materials and procedural guide to determine a factory’s traceability and control capability and to rate the results in a formalized matrix. These ratings can be used to demonstrate manufacturers’ capabilities, communicate these capabilities to customers or auditors, and provide a starting point for improving capabilities. As the sole solution provider of information systems delivering such scope of control and traceability, Aegis has the unique technical experience to deliver such a kit in conjunction with Practical. Aegis’ methods of rating traceability have been concurrently developed with, and adopted by, many of the leading manufacturers in the industry. Manufacturers can now benefit from Aegis’ years of definition and usage proficiency in factories all over the world, to rate their own systems and processes against a uniformed scale.

“Practical is committed to ensuring that electronic assembly engineers and technicians have information about new and innovative technology and to provide cost-effective components, PCBs, and training kits to improve their process,” said Practical President Kevin Laphen. “Working with Aegis helps us deliver innovative products and to continue to provide the tools our clients need to run their plants better.”

Practical’s free catalog is organized by package type/category with each product accompanied by drawings, description, part number with special attention to lead-free availability, and formulations. Supporting the catalog is the updated website www.practicalcomponents.com, with more than 1,250 pages of dummy components, test boards, training and setup kits, component drawings, engineering/design guide data, daisy chain patterns, production tools, training aids, and a complete downloadable catalog.

About Practical Components:
Practical Components is the worlds leading supplier of dummy components, which are exact mechanical equivalents of live components, used when only the physical properties of the components are required. These components can cost as much as 80% less than live components making the ideal for testing of solder processes, machine setup and other process evaluations. The new publication provides a detailed offering of Practical Components’ full line of dummy components, test boards, training kits, production tools and training materials. Visit our website at www.practicalcomponents.com

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems has been selected by Distron Corporation (Distron) to install its CircuitCAM for Workgroups software as part of a recent major capital expansion to improve productivity and customer communication. CircuitCAM for Workgroups is Aegis’ New Product Introduction (NPI) software suite composed of the CircuitCAM and Checkpoint products connected to a central iServer for future seamless migration into the Aegis Manufacturing Execution System (MES). The New England manufacturer has recently invested over one million dollars in new plant equipment and personnel to expand its surface mount capacity while improving overall product quality.

A leading electronic contract manufacturer located in Attleboro Falls, MA, Distron specializes in small to medium circuit board and electro-mechanical assemblies for military and commercial clients. The installation of Aegis software will help them better communicate with customers and provide additional data/services. Other recent purchases made by Distron, and associated with this recent major capital expansion to increase capacity and capability, include a Mydata Synergy line, a 1800 Heller EXL reflow oven, new Ekra screen printer, Pillarhouse Jade S-200 Selective Solder Machine and Electrovert Econopak Gold Lead Free wave solder machine.

“Over the 35 years that Distron has been in business, we have listened to our customers and stayed current with changes in technology,” said Rob Donovan, President of Distron Corporation. “Investing in Aegis’ NPI Software will keep us on the leading edge of electronic manufacturing. It will allow us to provide expanded services to our current and growing customer base while realizing our goals of increasing our surface mount capacity and improving our overall product quality.”

Aegis’ NPI software simplifies process and product data introduction by creating color-coded manufacturing documentation to ensure process control and improves bill of material (BOM) accuracy by automatically revealing BOM errors and assisting component engineering. It also expedites offline machine programming processes by linking in real time with machine vendor component libraries. CircuitCAM and CheckPoint technologies allow for quicker translation of customer data with smoother uploading to machines and transfer from line to line while reducing employee time spent on such efforts.

“Aegis is excited to play a role in Distron’s overall business strategy for growth and operational excellence,” added Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “By selecting Aegis to streamline their launch process to production, Distron demonstrates their holistic and well-developed approach to operating as a responsive link in their customers’ supply chains.”

About Distron Corporation:
Distron Corporation is a New England based provider of electronic contract manufacturing with over 36 years of experience servicing small to medium size surface mount, flex cable and electromechanical assembly. Distron specializes in high mix, low to medium volume production runs of all complexities. Distron’s 100+ employees provide excellent responsiveness and customer services with the ability to manage product from procurement and assembly through order fulfillment and depot repair.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Buckinghamshire, UK - Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Ltd. (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, will showcase the Version 7 evolution of its proven NPI and MES software system at the Electronics and Automation 2007 show in Utrecht Netherlands, Jaarbeurs Hall 8. As a courtesy based on years of factory-wide software experience Aegis will be located inside MYDATA Automation’s Stand 8B056.

The upcoming Version 7 software release pushes state-of-the-art technology to the next level. Aegis invites attendees to see first hand the following technical demonstrations:

• * Try-out the new Aegis “Data Miner”: A revolutionary tool to solve the unending data analysis and fulfillment demands of manufacturers. See how easy data retrieval, analysis, charting and reporting can be.


• * Experience an MES User Portal Forged from Years of Factory Usage: A complete redesign of the factory-floor user environment for the Aegis MES system. Refreshed for greater simplicity, speed, and feedback.


• * See the Ultimate in Real-Time Monitoring Dashboards: Build a custom real-time line, factory, or machine dashboard to meet your needs by just dragging-and dropping.


• * Business System Integration: Learn how Aegis’ successful xTend business system integration technology makes your Aegis MES system a seamless information partner to your design, planning, and ERP systems.


• * Get Current on Aegis’ Unmatched Machine Monitoring Support: Explore the additions to the already unmatched scope of xLink data collection for Test, AOI and measurement systems.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, has been selected by Silicon Forest Electronics, Inc. (Silicon Forest) to expedite and improve product launch and shop floor execution. Silicon Forest has built their reputation for fast and reliable customer response to product launch and engineering changes using Aegis’ New Product Introduction (NPI) systems for several years. The decision to expand from Aegis’ NPI into its full Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solution will greatly increase their ability to meet and exceed the stringent shop-floor information management demands of their clients, particularly in the defense market.

“Aegis is a proven product we have used to satisfy our customer’s demand for responsiveness and reliability for years,” commented Peter Wong, Silicon Forest’s Vice President of Technology. “Extending our solution to include shop-floor functions offers our clients greater speed of service, process control and information visibility. Deployment of the paperless functionality alone proved to save 400 man-hours monthly. The product tracking and quality functions now enable world-class data fulfillment capabilities to our customers.”

Silicon Forest is leveraging the value of having based their manufacturing information backbone in Aegis’ hands by expanding seamlessly from process planning into manufacturing execution. Partnering with Aegis means their existing NPI systems use the same information platform as their MES system and does not require a migration process to move into greater enterprise functionality. With the new extended Aegis solution, Silicon Forest now enjoys an automated and high-velocity path from customer data, process planning, and document generation, through paperless dispatching, product tracking and quality, and repair automation.

“As a long-standing NPI customer, Silicon Forest’s migration into the larger Aegis MES offering is something we greatly appreciate,” said Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “Our system-level solution was envisioned and designed by Aegis to enable customers a path upwards in capability without loss of data or investment. We look forward to help further distinguish Silicon Forest as a leader in the markets they service.”

About Silicon Forest Electronics, Inc.:
Silicon Forest Electronics, Inc. is the premier Electronics Contract Manufacturing Services facility in the Northwest, providing prototype and production solutions to many of the top names in electronics, including FLIR Systems, Planar, Hach Ultra Analytical, Hewlett Packard, Sharp, Nintendo and many others.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Buckinghamshire, UK – Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Ltd. (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, will showcase the Version 7 evolution of its proven NPI and MES software system at the NEPCON 2007 Exhibition in Birmingham, UK in booth #L28.

Based on years of factory-wide software system experience, the upcoming Version 7 software release pushes state-of-the-art technology to the next level. Aegis invites attendees to see first hand the following technical demonstrations:

• Try-out the new Aegis “Data Miner”: A revolutionary tool to solve the unending data analysis and fulfillment demands of manufacturers. See how easy data retrieval, analysis, charting and reporting can be.

• Experience an MES User Portal Forged from Years of Factory Usage: A complete redesign of the factory-floor user environment for the Aegis MES system. Refreshed for greater simplicity, speed, and feedback.

• See the Ultimate in Real-Time Monitoring Dashboards: Build a custom real-time line, factory, or machine dashboard to meet your needs by just dragging-and dropping.

• Business System Integration: Learn how Aegis’ successful xTend business system integration technology makes your Aegis MES system a seamless information partner to your design, planning, and ERP systems.

• Get Current on Aegis’ Unmatched Machine Monitoring Support: Explore the additions to the already unmatched scope of xLink data collection for Test, AOI and measurement systems.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia, PA – Aegis Industrial Software (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems was pleased to accept top honors for Service Excellence from UP Media Group Inc., for the seventh consecutive year.

Presented annually at APEX, the Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) are presented by Circuits Assembly magazine to companies that receive the highest customer service ratings as judged by their own customers. The award is derived from responses to in-depth online surveys where customers are asked to evaluate the participants’ dependability, ease of use, responsiveness, technology, and overall value for the price. Aegis took the title in the Manufacturing / Supply Chain Management Software category with a service rating of 4.84 out of a possible 5 virtually eliminating the competition. The award has been presented a total of 7 times and has been won by Aegis every year it has been offered.

"We are honored to be recognized for the seventh consecutive year by our customers,” said Brian Bunn, Aegis Customer Service Manager. “Our technical support team’s commitment to going above and beyond the needs of our customers is the reason we’ve held this honor for so long. We intend to continue our dedication to our clients needs for many years to come."

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, will showcase the Version 7 evolution of its proven NPI and MES software system at the IPC Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and Designers Summit in Los Angles, CA, at booth #2819.

Based on years of factory-wide software system experience, the upcoming Version 7 software release pushes state-of-the-art technology to the next level. Aegis invites attendees to see first hand the following technical demonstrations:

• Try-out the new Aegis “Data Miner”: A revolutionary tool to solve the unending data analysis and fulfillment demands of manufacturers. See how easy data retrieval, analysis, charting and reporting can be.

• Experience an MES User Portal Forged from Years of Factory Usage: A complete redesign of the factory-floor user environment for the Aegis MES system. Refreshed for greater simplicity, speed, and feedback.

• See the Ultimate in Real-Time Monitoring Dashboards: Build a custom real-time line, factory, or machine dashboard to meet your needs by just dragging-and dropping.

• Business System Integration: Learn how Aegis’ successful xTend business system integration technology makes your Aegis MES system a seamless information partner to your design, planning, and ERP systems.

• Get Current on Aegis’ Unmatched Machine Monitoring Support: Explore the additions to the already unmatched scope of xLink data collection for Test, AOI and measurement systems.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, has been selected by Microboard Processing Incorporated (MPI) to install its integrated NPI/MES product suite. After successfully employing Aegis’s new product introduction and paperless documentation software for many years, MPI will now implement the entire software system factory-wide. The deployment will position MPI to deliver full traceability and real-time production and quality visibility to their customers in the particularly demanding medical markets they serve.

“We picked one major manufacturing enhancement this year which we felt would be the single largest contributor towards giving our customers the information that we all need to better manage business and obtain the tracking functionality we required, and this was the project chosen – hands down,” commented Mike Ellis, MPI President and COO. “In my mind, the Aegis NPI/MES functionality ranks equal in magnitude and perhaps higher in some aspects than a major ERP implementation in terms of effectiveness to our operation. We are extremely pleased to have this in full effect by the end of this calendar year.”

To meet stringent medical manufacturing requirements, MPI requires a single system to manage all product, process, quality, test, machine and shop-floor materials data. Through a factory-wide deployment, Aegis’s NPI/MES Software provides the necessary traceability for surface mount lots and also for materials through hand assembly, rework changes, test, diagnostics, and out through system integration and box build. Other added benefits of Aegis’s NPI/MES software include factory-wide WIP visibility in real-time for efficient production analysis and job tracking, connection-level defect collection, repair automation, and quality analytics.

“MPI’s deployment of our entire solution is particularly gratifying because they grew from utilizing NPI systems into this greater solution,” said Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “All product and process data they had processed for years through our front-end systems is now immediately usable in their new total MES system. It is a clear demonstration of the power of a scalable, singular solution from one vendor growing to meet the needs of a growing customer.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Company (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems will showcase their latest product portfolio at the AT Expo, Chicago, September 26th-28th, Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, booth # 5812.

Aegis offers innovative software systems for absolute control and traceability in the electronics manufacturing enterprise. Fully integrated, enterprise-capable software enhances new product introduction (NPI) through manufacturing execution (MES). On the factory floor, 100% web based systems deliver paperless documentation, verify material setups for placement equipment and workstations, track product, collect defects to ensure quality, assist repair, analyze quality metrics, and monitor machine and line performance. Factory office solutions include CAD conversion into machine programs, routing development and assembly documentation. Flexible bill of material analysis and archival, revision control, AVL/AML management, and electronic approval and release cycles offer total product data management. Companies utilizing Aegis’ Manufacturing Information Management System benefit from centralized data access for comprehensive product process traceability and dynamic analytics rich in content.

Aegis is also the creator of xLink Framework Technology, a unique alliance with equipment vendors which has made possible a commercially viable, uniform means of data collection from varied machinery, built on the IPC CAMX data content standards. When embedded on assembly, test, measurement, and inspection equipment, the xLink Framework turns machine vendor machines into mini-web servers, providing simplified access to all of their operations, processes, and product data. The xLink Transmitter also supplies manufacturers with a cost effective, commercial, vendor-independent and reliable method of accessing data in standardized IPC CAMX, making it interpretable to any third party software system they require. Through partnerships stretching back 10 years, the Aegis xLink technology has made the dream of plug-and-play machines in the factory a reality with the emergence of universal data acquisition.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, announces the addition of online, credit-card ordering to its existing Customer Gateway website. Online credit-card purchasing options offer greater flexibility and simplicity for customers. As part of Aegis’ effort to continuously improve its industry-leading support services, customers may now purchase items online, setup monthly payment plans, choose auto-charge options, and review online quotes. Common customer purchases through this system include additional seats and modules, service contracts, on-demand tutorials, interactive web-based training sessions and on-line user certification programs. Products and services can now be purchased more easily and efficiently, by credit-card and through the web.

“Customers often asked us for a method of payment that was simple, web-based and part of our current Customer Gateway,” said Micah Newcomb, Aegis Vice President of Services. “Accepting payment by credit card will streamline the processing of service contract renewals and the purchase of additional modules, making this the easiest approach for manufacturers to purchase and remain up to date with software and service. Aegis hopes this new capability will enhance its already industry-leading customer services program, which has won Circuits Assembly’s Customer Service Excellence Award for the past six consecutive years.”

One of the technical advantages of this solution is its total integration to the Aegis Customer Relationship Management System that runs all Aegis support, engineering, sales, and quoting operations worldwide. This integration enables automatic prorated service renewal calculations, presentation of online quotes, inventory lookup and other extended services. Aegis products are built on the premise that total integration of data and visibility improves manufacturing greatly. This philosophy is also applied internally to customer information management.

Current Online Customer Service Support Operations

Online Ordering as well as the following online support services can be accessed online at www.aiscorp.com. Customers have the ability through the Aegis website to request information, directly email Aegis Technical Support, launch directly into the Aegis WebEx Support Center, and log into the Customer Gateway.

The Aegis Customer Gateway – is a secured web area which allows customers to access their account and view product inventory. While in the Gateway, customers are able to gain access to the latest software, updates, manuals, tools and tutorials and integrate directly into the Aegis CRM system which automatically and dynamically presents applicable options based on the customers’ inventory.

On-Line Support – Aegis offers interactive online meeting and collaboration services including remote technical support by sharing PC desktops. Aegis utilizes WebEx technologies to provide this service.

e-Support – In order to streamline support services, Aegis has embedded ‘e-Support’ into core Aegis NPI products. This tool will transmit the vital technical data about a given project and the computer in use directly to an Aegis Support Technician when an issue is encountered. The option to attach the entire project is also provided along with the ability to include additional information or notes. The e-Support tool ensures the quickest and most accurate support services possible. **e-Support does not transmit any secured or confidential information.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

By Keith Robinson, Industry Manager, Frost & Sullivan

Jason Spera is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis). A former electronics assembly industry manufacturing engineer, Mr. Spera’s factory-floor experience compelled him to create software solutions for his industry. His experience with real-world productivity problems has shaped a suite of tools for improving efficiency throughout the electronics industry and in factories worldwide.

Jason Spera
Keith Robinson (KR): What are some of the key differentiators in the solutions that Aegis has to offer compared to its competitors?

Jason Spera (JS): There are two major differentiators. First is the issue of product scope that we offer and the other is the data depth we go to.

We have a strong presence in MES as well as new product introduction (NPI) markets for electronics assembly. Our product scope begins with NPI functionality in the factory office at the point of data interception from the design labs. This is something MES systems simply do not normally encompass, and yet it is absolutely critical to delivering what customers need today. We convert the CAD design and the Bill of Materials into a full product routing, create visual aids automatically, generate and optimize all required machine programs, setup logic decisions for quality, repair loop automation and test. Essentially, we prepare all the data needed to produce a product properly and to drive the MES system, including the bill of process, for shop floor material control. The product-intelligent data model this process populates in our system is a significant reason why Aegis MES is so much more capable than competitive offerings.

Another difference is our definition of what MES should include. We begin our definition of MES with a version-controlled, paperless document that is delivered to every station on the factory floor, product tracking for performance and bottleneck detection of serialized product all the way from birthing through system integration and ultimately to pack-out. We actually address all shop-floor issues all the way into the final packaging and support them through intelligent visual of the product that is made possible through our inherent connection to the design data from the front-end NPI systems. We also consider shop-floor material control, the capability of physically controlling conveyorized line flow, and data acquisition adapters to a vast variety of production and test machines. Aegis offers more out-of-the-box connectors to the machines on the market than anybody else. So this, when combined with the total solution that has an analytics engine, enterprise level visibility and browser based tools, results in a much broader solution set for an electronics assembly factory.

This scope and depth of coverage yields specific and unique benefits that have real value for customers. It makes possible pin-level visual defect collection, unprecedented depth of analytics, and perfect component-level materials traceability. It offers the ability to validate all tools, chemicals, consumable and feeding devices at every single station factory wide. So our system not only tracks what occurred, it assures that everything was setup properly before it actually does occur. It’s a matter of risk mitigation. Aegis doesn’t just monitor production activities, it keeps mistakes from occurring in the first place.

There is no other system on the market that can touch our traceability depth. In order to go to our level, you need product data intelligence, real time data connection to the robots and the machines, complete shop floor material control, as well as a tracking system with quality and test. Before Aegis, in order to meet the regulatory requirements from the FDA, military and automotive sectors, people would be left trying to put together multiple solutions to match our functional scope. But the value proposition for the customer to get everything they need from Aegis, instead of multiple vendors, is obviously much more compelling.

KR: What is the unique selling point of your company?

JS: At the business level, both the co-founder, who is our CTO, and myself were actually manufacturing engineers. So technologically, we know what our customers want from personal experience and are not merely driven by focus groups or product managers to determine the challenges existing within our customers’ production floors. That is a big differentiator for our customers. It allows them to communicate with our company better because we hire people who come from manufacturing engineering backgrounds. We have a greater understanding of the needs of our customers and that allows our engineers to build better solutions.

Functionally, we have particular selling advantages. We offer a greater scope and depth of coverage of factory floor information and control issues than any single vendor. Our solution is also more rapidly deployable because it was built to accommodate a great number of installations, out-of-the-box. Aegis’ systems offer a significantly lower level of integration challenges than competitors and require little to no customization by engineers.

KR: What are the advantages of using third party software in the SMT industry versus a company developing in-house software?

JS: When you have an in-house department building a custom software solution, they generally do not look at the users within their own company as their ‘customers’. So they are not as responsive to their own company’s needs as a third-party provider will be. Our motivation, and it is a powerful one, is the customer. They are the driving force in the evolution of any software product and their needs are why commercial products move quickly forward.

When you invest in Aegis you are inheriting the results of enhancement requests from countless other production environments in which the system has been deployed, and in our case, that is over 1100 different sites and thousands of enhancements. Servicing so many customers with one design leads to a solution that accommodates a vast array of different conditions, often supporting capabilities the customer does not even yet require when they purchase it. Conversely, in-house solutions while usually having rich functionality and a very specific function set, they are designed around a narrow view of one manufacturing environment at one time in the history of the company. For this reason they typically do not adapt well to changes in the company’s functional needs or manufacturing environment. This leads to an endless cycle of ‘patch’ responses to each newly arising need rather than a holistic solution.

KR: How strong is your R&D, and what are some of the measures that you have taken to address customer needs like data sharing, visibility, reducing down time etc. to improve customer satisfaction?

JS: In the Aegis model, the MES system physically controls and also monitors all shop-floor activities. In such an MES system, system failure stops product movement and can damage traceability integrity, and therefore is just not acceptable. This demands data acquisition systems and a server software architecture that both deal seamlessly with inevitable network or server failures.

Our entire system offers architectural benefits delivering assured uptime, but also recovery from the inevitable. It has unlimited lateral scalability and automatic fail over at the business logic layer. Customers may opt for arrays of servers that offer automatic failover in the case of individual server failure.

Our technology for the data collection side is also quite advanced and is actually adopted widely by some of the top machine vendors like Speedline and PHILIPS. This data acquisition technology ensures that even when the network fails in the factory, our data adapters for machines cache and time synchronize the data. The moment the network comes back up, data is resynchronized on the server side. The fact that our data connections to the machines, and the operator interface browsers both have this "cache and forward" technology, basically assures the customer that data will not be lost even in the event of connectivity and infrastructure problems beyond the software’s control.

KR: What are some of the challenges you see facing software vendors that are participating in the SMT Industry and how has your company overcome some of these challenges?

JS: Currently, the greatest challenge is the issue of traceability, which is a super set of RoHS. Regulatory demands for declaring the record of assembly and the material content of everything could prove to be a costly challenge for the industry.

During the last 18 months we have observed a surprising upswing in the demands for new levels of traceability. Now, we are actually delivering systems that take care of this through real time data acquired from the machines for every critical parameter possible like oven temperatures, the maximum time the units were in that oven, and the peak temperatures they experienced all the way down to the unit, because they need to know the experience of every component on it. Our system is focused on getting customers through the nightmare of the lead-free transition and the greater issue of process-wide product content and process traceability.

KR: What are some of the growth strategies that your company has implemented to foray into untapped markets and expanded client base?

JS: We have a few historical milestones that we are quite proud of that illustrates why our competitors are often following us. When we were only in the NPI market, we were the first company to get to the 32-bit platform. When we expanded into factory floor functionality we were the first to go to a multi-tier, totally web-based system. We were also the first to use a standards based XML data acquisition system for real time communication machines based on an IPC CAMX standard. Also, most recently, we moved into full factory floor for shop floor material control before anyone had really envisioned the joining of NPI, MES, and Shop Floor Materials Control into one massive solution.

Aegis is actually quite unique in that we encompass the entire shop floor management issue. We believe there exist two axes of information control and visibility required to fully support a factory. The first axis, and the one that most MES providers focus on, is simply product movement and perhaps data acquisition along that movement. However, the other axis requires the system to control the interception of materials to the right process station at the right time. What makes our system unique is that we control both axes of all the material and product movement, which yields a new level of control and total traceability. The only boundary that we see as limiting our directions of growth is our intent to avoid encroaching on the roles of ERP. But, when you are on the shop floor or factory office, Aegis wants to control all the data flow of the company and act as the data provider to the upper layer systems.

KR: If you are looking into the crystal ball, where do you see the SMT industry five years from now?

JS: SMT is an interesting industry. When compared to the semiconductor industry it leaves a lot to be desired in the area of factory floor information management. I also think the market has to mature in order for it to get to the point where regulatory demands for traceability and process control will cause more widespread demand for total factory information systems in the market.

I also believe there will be a shift in the next five years. Manufacturers will begin to expect the level of process integration, control and data management, which is considered normal in semiconductor, to migrate into electronics assembly. This is going to require a synergy of the machine vendors and the software providers. This is why Aegis built the xLink data acquisition technology in conjunction with the machine vendors because we see it as the first movement towards attaining this goal. Rather than trying to append things to the machine and compete with the machine vendors, we work with them because without that cooperation you cannot really deliver what the customer wants. Customers are beginning to want total factory information systems and we intend to be their solution.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Aegis Europe, a subsidiary of Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, will be exhibiting its new Mechanical CAD Module (MCAD) for CircuitCAM at Nepcon 2006 NEC, Birmingham in stand #H70. This significant system enhancement uniquely answers the increasing customer demand for an end-to-end NPI through MES solution supporting electronics assembly, system integration, and box build. An integral part of the greater Aegis factory information system, MCAD supports box and mechanical product documentation, tracking, quality and materials management as elegantly as the solution currently supports circuit card product launch and manufacturing execution. Aegis customers may now support any discrete assembly processes—from circuit boards to full system level assembly—in a single information system.

MCAD functionality is inherently incorporated within Aegis’ web-centric manufacturing execution system (MES). Shop-floor operators may now step through and drill into iView's existing sequential assembly process feature with intelligent cross-reference to the mechanical components. Aegis MES also supports multi-level assemblies and material setup validation at any work station, and these assemblies are now better depicted in the visual aids.

Jason Spera, Aegis’ CEO commented on the release, “Our customers find value in the Aegis philosophy of support for the maximum scope of factory information and execution functions. This MCAD system is a direct response to this customer expectation, and is the result of the highest ranking customer enhancement request received by Aegis in the last 24 months. It constitutes a significant extension of our solution to support the entirety of the manufacturing floor and process.”

Features and Benefits include:

• • Support for common mechanical CAD vector file formats,
• • Simple digitizing allows 2D capture from a 3D drawing with the desired user-controlled perspective.
• • A mechanical Shape Library permits re-use of commonly used items and components, such as screws, spacers, nuts, etc.
• • A dynamic color-coded parts list display in the visual aids provides easy cross-referencing to the drawing in the same
• manner used for circuit board visual aids.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Palo Alto, California - Frost & Sullivan has selected Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis) as the recipient of the 2006 Company of the Year Award in the surface mount technology (SMT) software sector for its role in helping clients to successfully transition to a lead-free manufacturing process.

With the deadline for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive approaching on July 1, 2006, electronic manufacturers worldwide are likely to be challenged with effectively employing lead-free components in their products.

The lead-free solder process in electronics assembly brings about different defects, revised production processes as well as inspection criteria. It also introduces more intensive requirements for shop-floor materials control, quality and repair management, materials declaration and total traceability. Aegis' solutions help manufacturers address these challenges through a combined product launch and manufacturing execution platform supporting improved speed, control, and visibility.

The Company of the Year Award is presented to a company that has exhibited excellence in technology innovation, competitive strategy, and leadership within the electronics manufacturing industry on the SMT line. Thus, each year, the Award lauds innovating concepts that pioneer client applications. It recognizes exceptional products and services as well as outstanding customer service.

“Aegis provides a highly competent platform that integrates CAD and bill of materials intelligence to the real-time events and variables emerging from the executing process. A singular solution spanning product data launch, shop-floor materials control, manufacturing execution, quality, test, and analytics yields real enhancement of production processes,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Deepa Mathew. “Additionally, Aegis’ comprehensive, standards-based machine data acquisition technology enables mapping real-time data to the product intelligence, ensuring a high degree of visibility for the customer who wants to keep tabs on any issue in real time. It also yields a unique scope and depth of traceability, for quality and regulatory purposes. Aegis’ delivery of a single platform encompassing product intelligence, MES, Quality, analytics, and actual shop-floor product and materials control enables manufacturers to overcome the challenges in their lead-free future.”

Beyond its impact to RoHS, the issue of traceability is a key factor in industries that have strict guidelines for products with high associated risk, in particular the medical, military, and automotive industries. To undercut the risk involved, and to meet the ever-increasing customer demand for component level product traceability mapped to process data from production and measurement devices in the factory –– Aegis is a must-have solution.

Aegis’ solution begins with risk control in the factory office during data preparation for product launch. Front-end modules effectively control a key element of risk on the production floor by eliminating errors rooted in data preparation. The system successfully cleans bills of materials data, ensures proper routing, develops machine recipes off-line, and generates automatic operator visuals and documentation across the entire route. Prior to job launch into the MES section of the system, the prepared information defining and supporting the process is placed under version control, sent through approvals, and electronically assured as good, thereby greatly increasing the probability of sound job execution and consequently a quality product.

On the factory floor, Aegis monitors and controls product movement, the shop-floor materials movement intercepting the process, and the information emerging from all stations as a result. This real time connection to materials, lines and machines is defined by Aegis’ "Control and Visibility" solution concept. It achieves physical control over materials verification, station setups and job changeovers by employing RFID and PLC hardware utilizing SMEMA communications that connect to the adjacent inline equipment and the central information database. This control mechanism is vendor-independent and non-invasive to the production line equipment. It assures the right tools, chemicals and components are utilized at the right station and for the right product at every moment. Combined with visual quality collection and Aegis real-time XML machine data acquisition technology, the solution delivers unique levels of both process automation and information access.

Customers have the benefit of adopting modular solutions or the entire suite to suit their application for maximum product content (Level 4) and process-related traceability. Furthermore, Aegis offers its solutions at a low cost of ownership as compared to its competitors. A significant portion of their solution is out-of-the box and does not require significant customization per application. Besides being extremely competitive when it comes to annual contract fees, the company also employs a number of value added services to ensure they remain in sync with their customers.

Overall, its highly flexible range of solutions, combined with support services recognized through 6 consecutive years of independent survey awards has won over a customer base that ranges from tier-1 players to relatively smaller tier-3 companies. Aegis solutions find high acceptance in industries that have strict regulations and place high value on data collection and analysis.

In recognition of its product intelligence and scope to beat competition, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present Aegis with the 2006 Company of the Year Award In SMT Software.

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services, and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit www.awards.frost.com or www.electronics.frost.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA  - Aegis Industrial Software Corporation (Aegis), the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems has been selected by Cirtronics Corporation (Cirtronics) to provide NPI and MES solutions to assist product launch and coordinate information flow on their factory floor. The adoption also marks Cirtronics as one of the first electronics contract manufacturers to become integrated via the Aegis xTend Framework. The xTend Framework elegantly fuses Aegis’ MES system with its clients’ ERP/MRP and other supply chain systems eliminating information gaps and reducing redundant operations of data entry.

Cirtronics, a leading contractor based in Milford, NH, had created sophisticated internal information solutions for their own use over the years and required an NPI/MES solution that would seamlessly integrate with them. This strategic deployment uses the Aegis xTend framework, adapted by Aegis engineering services, to synchronize the product and process intelligence of Aegis with the business systems of Cirtronics. This integration enables Cirtronics to more fully leverage the value of all systems within their enterprise, minimize transaction overhead and increase product launch velocity.

“With our deployment project underway, our people are pleased with the partner we chose and are excited about the agility this system brings to our launch and execution processes,” said Gerardine Ferlins, President of Cirtronics. “Aegis will be completely integrated into our existing business information systems, making it a seamless part of the Cirtronics infrastructure. Rapid and reliable information flow is a key benefit we offer our customers and Aegis contributes to that value proposition now.”

"The people of Cirtronics have always taken a systems-level approach to information throughout the business,” commented Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “This belief in the importance of total integration of factory systems is shared by Aegis and is fundamental to our system designs. That is why the Cirtronics deployment and the relationship we are building with our new customer is so exciting.”

About Cirtronics Corporation
Cirtronics Corporation is a full service ECM (electronic contract manufacturer) with over twenty-three years of manufacturing expertise built on long-term relationships with a diversified base of electronic companies in the New England area. Over the years we have grown in size to over $35 million in sales while continually expanding our capabilities to meet the changing needs of our customers and employees. As well as being ISO 9001:2000 certified, we have earned the reputation as a high quality, “does what we say we’ll do” company; always striving to better serve our customers.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems announces the launch of its new system integration technology and professional services program known as xTend. The xTend Framework elegantly fuses Aegis’ MES system with its clients’ ERP/MRP and supply chain systems eliminating information gaps and reducing redundant operations of data entry.

xTend is a program comprised of both a sophisticated integration technology and a new business group within Aegis, dedicated to providing customers professional engineering services, consultancy, integration planning and deployment. xTend provides Aegis customers with a turn-key means to fully integrate their Aegis deployment into their enterprise business systems.

“xTend, and the package of professional services offered with it, increase Aegis’ value in the enterprise by connecting with existing business systems. The technology turns the Aegis system into a ‘black box,’ exposing the total scope and depth of quality, performance, process and product information.” Said Jason Spera, Aegis CEO, “Not just a technical solution, Aegis offers a business unit and a structured process to provide customers the engineering and planning expertise needed to ensure successful integration. We are excited to supply our clients with a way to fill the information gap below their business systems right down to the granular information about their product and process.”

Technologically, xTend is a framework of .NET interfaces of commonly utilized functions and data transfers required by customers to link Aegis solutions to a business system or legacy system. Designed to be separate from other components, xTend is used for integration purposes only. It remains clean and forward-compatible enabling simplified upgrades without affecting core systems. The xTend Framework is also highly documented using Microsoft engineering standards for customers wishing to construct their own 'adapters' for particular applications.

Features and benefits include:

• • Synchronized information flow between ERP and Aegis’ support of the factory flow
• • Elegant information and functional integration of Aegis to third party systems.
• • Extensive documentation to facilitate use by integrators or customer IT personnel.
• • Ability for Aegis engineering to more quickly when creating custom integrations ranging from simple file transfers to sophisticated web service integration.
• • Increases Aegis' value as a data provider to any company’s business systems by reducing redundant operations or data entry between Aegis and these business systems.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

ANAHEIM, CA – APEX 2006, Information visibility and control in electronics assembly once lagged behind the semiconductor industry where data acquisition from every machine is the norm. At APEX 2006, Aegis is honored to stand alongside its 24 machine vendor partners to announce the plug-and-play factory has taken widespread root in electronics assembly. This support for Aegis xLink technology for data acquisition represents an unprecedented cooperation of a software supplier and the machine vendors, for the benefit of the entire industry.

At APEX 2003, Aegis launched its xLink CAMX data transmitter on 7 makes and 16 models of machines. Today, over 22 makes and 88 models of machines are compatible with xLink. This compatibility enables these assembly, process, test, and inspection systems to instantly connect to the factory intranet and transmit their real-time IPC CAMX messages to any software system requiring those events. The data is uniform per the IPC CAMX standard, and acquiring the data is as simple as opening a web browser. The result? Open, consistent, and easily accessible factory-wide information.

Today’s manufacturers have two factory floor information requirements: First, a need to access the valuable data their machines generate about their operations, processes, and products. Secondly, a cost effective, commercial, vendor-independent, and reliable method of accessing this data. The Aegis xLink Transmitter, when embedded on assembly, test, measurement, and inspection equipment, turns these machines into mini-web servers, providing simplified access to their data. This data is standardized to IPC CAMX, making it interpretable to any third party software system requiring it.

xLink is in use all over the world in actual mission-critical production. Three of the world’s top 10 military manufacturers rely upon it. One of the top 10 medical device manufacturers and one of the top 5 EMS providers utilize it. Many more employ it each day to deliver product traceability, monitor processes, and track performance. Integrated machines include product scanners, printers, laser etchers, dispensers, pick and place, ovens, thermal profilers, AOI, AXI, ICT, flying probe, functional testers, and even third-party software systems such as feeder setup systems.

The data provided by xLink supports levels of traceability, process monitoring, and control not yet seen in electronics assembly. Aegis and its partners are pleased to contribute this important step in the evolution of true process control, traceability and monitoring in the electronics assembly industry.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Anaheim, CA – Aegis Industrial Software, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems was pleased to accept top honors for Service Excellence from UP Media Group Inc., for the sixth consecutive year.

Presented annually at APEX, the Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) are presented by Circuits Assembly magazine to companies that receive the highest customer service ratings as judged by their own customers. The award is derived from responses to in-depth online surveys where customers are asked to evaluate the participants’ dependability, ease of use, responsiveness, technology, and overall value for the price. Aegis took the title in the Manufacturing / Supply Chain Management Software category with a service rating of 4.86 out of a possible 5, virtually eliminating the competition.

Brian Bunn, Aegis Customer Service Manager, gave kudos to the hard working Aegis service department, saying, "It's quite an accomplishment to sweep this award category every year its been offered. The dedicated work of our technical support team and their commitment to going above and beyond the needs of our customers is the reason we’ve held this honor for so long. It is their award."

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems is pleased to introduce the “MCAD” system. This significant system enhancement uniquely answers the increasing customer demand for an end-to-end NPI through MES solution supporting electronics assembly, system integration, and box build. An integral part of the greater Aegis factory information system, it supports box and mechanical product documentation, tracking, quality, and materials management as elegantly as the solution currently supports circuit card product launch and manufacturing execution. Aegis customers may now support any discrete assembly processes—from circuit boards to full system level assembly—in a single information system.

MCAD functionality is inherently incorporated within Aegis’ web-centric manufacturing execution system (MES). Shop-floor operators may now step through and drill into iView's existing sequential assembly process feature with intelligent cross-reference to the mechanical components. Aegis MES also supports multi-level assemblies and material setup validation at any work station, and these assemblies are now better depicted in the visual aids.

Jason Spera, Aegis’ CEO commented on the release, “Our customers find value in the Aegis philosophy of support for the maximum scope of factory information and execution functions. This MCAD system is a direct response to this customer expectation, and is the result of the highest ranking customer enhancement request received by Aegis in the last 24 months. It constitutes a significant extension of our solution to support the entirety of the manufacturing floor and process.”

Features and Benefits include:

• • Support for common mechanical CAD vector file formats,
• • Simple digitizing allows 2D capture from a 3D drawing with the desired user-controlled perspective.
• • A mechanical Shape Library permits re-use of commonly used items and components, such as screws, spacers, nuts, etc.
• • A dynamic color-coded parts list display in the visual aids provides easy cross-referencing to the drawing in the same manner used for circuit board visual aids.

Aegis’ MCAD module is a cost option available in the upcoming 6.1 release, and existing customers have been offered this option at no charge.*

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems has been selected by Variosystems, Inc. to provide NPI and MES software solutions across their network of facilities, worldwide. Variosystems' goal is to convert all facilities to a paperless environment to ensure revision control not only on production data (BOMs Assembly drawings, etc) but also on actual production line processes. Aegis integrated NPI and MES software modules will automatically collect quality data to provide quicker feedback to allow improvement of all processes across the entire facility network. This will improve time to market (from CAD import to finished product) and provide improved quality and yield through a single, web-based data access system.

Alfred Langguth, Director of Operations & Development for Variosystems, Inc. said," We selected Aegis after carefully evaluating our requirements for manufacturing software and conducting extensive research on the available solutions on the market. Aegis was the best fit. An important issue for us was that the software we selected be an integrated solution from a single supplier. We liked the fact the Aegis is solely focused on the Electronics Manufacturing industry and therefore knew and understood our requirements and goals. Their multi-language support was also a key consideration, since we have facilities in the US, Switzerland and Sri Lanka."

Jason Spera, Aegis CEO, said, “We look forward to helping Variosystems join their multiple databases into a fully web-based system to create a single product, process, and quality information backbone across all their facilities. We approach all of our customer needs in the spirit of true partnership and are working with them to ensure they achieve all the goals they have set for tighter process control and streamlined new product introduction."

About Variosystems Inc.
Variosystems, a privately held electronics CEM, operates facilities in the United States, Europe and Asia. While sales revenue puts them at the forefront of the larger second tier CEMs, they are dedicated to offering their customers process capabilities, manufacturing technology and global services that meet or exceed those offered by the best first tier companies. Variosystems counts over 100 leading industrial companies among their customers including, Siemens, Honeywell, Daimler Benz and Cray. Many customers are working with Variosystems on international projects distributed across various subsidiaries worldwide. This cross-border support network provided by Variosystems allows them to provide superior flexibility to their customers.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Productronica, Munich - Hall A4 Stand 167 – 15 November 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in New Product Introduction and Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced that Variosystems AG has installed Aegis integrated NPI and MES suites. Variosystems AG based in Steinach, Switzerland, is part of the international Variosystems group with facilities in Dallas, Texas, and Negombo, Sri Lanka. Variosystems AG is a leading European contract assembler priding itself on innovation, fast ramp up times, specialisation in all test requirements and global procurement. In parallel Variosystems Inc is also implementing Aegis NPI and MES systems at its Dallas facility.

Commenting on the recent implementation, Alfred Langguth, director of operations and development, said, “Variosystems spent several months evaluating different NPI tools for the Steinach and Dallas facilities, looking for a total solution to meet our global integrated business needs. We generated a matrix of our requirements and then ranked the tools, realizing that Aegis provided the best solution at the best price. Our main goal is to further enhance our quality level. The use of "electronic work instructions" will allow us to remove most of the paper instructions and drawings now on our production floors. Route enforcement will allow us to guarantee that no production step is skipped. Variosystems expects that the integrated online reports will allow us to identify potential quality issues before they become problems.”

“Variosystems is looking to create a complete link across all business and factory processes within one seamless system for optimum manufacturing. They want to build a more robust, technology-independent process defining ‘how’ products are to be built. In the European contract assembly market rapid NPI, with provable quality and quality reporting, compliance to RoHS directives and conformance to regulatory requirements, is a must,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe.

“The criteria for evaluating and selecting Aegis came down to our ability to rapidly create machine programs for their different machine sets, easy-of-use in creating all documentation – drawings and work instructions, proven shop floor control and full integration to their MRP system,” Peter added.

The Aegis documentation package, integrated with machine programming, supports multimedia capabilities. Drawings can be easily annotated with photos, diagrams and video clips for complex hand assembly or repair work and of course the documentation can be in any language aiding fast product ramp up between the global sites.

“A key requirement was multilingual support (English and German) so that we could implement the same system in both facilities in Steinach Switzerland and Southlake Texas. This will allow our company to operate with the same procedures in both locations, regardless of location, distance, language and time zone,” said Norbert Bachstein, Geschaftsfuhrer at Variosystems AG.

About Variosystems Group
The company was formed in 1993 and is privately owned with active day-to-day involvement by the three owners who are the CEO’ of the various operating divisions. The company employees 420 people across the three manufacturing sites, with a 25% increase in the past 12 months. Variosystems is already RoHS 2002/95/EC compliant, has IPC610D to class III for medical and defence products and certification to the internationally recognised quality management system (QMS) standard, ISO 9001 is maintained for all three facilities. Variosystems is particularly strong in the whole area of test; covering in-circuit (3 machines in Steinach including one of the latest hybrid machines), flying probe and functional test for the majority of its customers. For more information go to http://www.variosystems.ch

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Productronica, Munich Hall A4 Stand 167 – 15 November 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced that Hansatech Limited, a UK established contract electronics manufacturer, has selected Aegis manufacturing information software for process definition, documentation and advanced machine programming. The suite includes 3 CircuitCAM concurrent licenses for all documentation creation and advanced off-line machine programming with line balancing. Hansatech provides turnkey system and box build services, the assembly of chassis and other enclosed systems, and test and commissioning services across a diverse range of industries, from mobile and satellite communications, audio mixing consoles and in-car hi-fi to ion implantation, spectrophotometry and drug delivery systems.

Many years of experience in introducing new products to manufacturing has resulted in the development of comprehensive and highly robust New Product Introduction (NPI) procedures throughout the company. The ability to introduce new products efficiently with minimum time to market is a key element of Hansatech’s contract manufacturing assembly business and the strategy behind their investment in new software systems for NPI.

With support for Hansatech’s existing software being discontinued, in-depth evaluations showed that the alternative product offered was not ideal. Aegis systems provided much increased programming functionality and improved compatibility with Hansatech equipment, with the potential to expand their NPI and manufacturing control processes still further.

Commenting on the recent implementation, Guy Bridge, engineering manager at Hansatech (King’s Lynn plant), said, “In selecting the Aegis software above alternative, less suitable solutions, we are able to realize a much reduced cost of ownership, significantly improved off-line programming capabilities that will free up capacity on production equipment, and reduced cycle time from data receipt to program completion.”

“We also evaluated that the scope for introducing greater ‘intelligence’ into our machine programming and the continued expansion of our manufacturing control systems was considerable and definitely achievable with Aegis software, delivering benefits right across the business,” Guy added.

“Hansatech was also extremely pleased with our competitive cost of ownership and annual maintenance program,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe. “Their criteria for evaluating and selecting Aegis came down to our strength in relationships with the equipment manufacturers and our ability, as a software supplier, to maintain total compatibility and harmony with changes to machine manufacturer’s platforms – essential to the efficiency of Hansatech’s operation.”

The Aegis system allows manufacturers to merge the bill of materials with the supplied CAD data to support rapid New Product Introduction for multiple lines and multiple processes, with built-in process and BOM revision control. CircuitCAM defines the logical routings, aiding fast and consistent data preparation and delivery of programs to machines, documentation to manual assembly stations, and task and checklists to all locations from printing to AOI to repair to box-build. The Aegis software handles Hansatech off-line machine programming and optimization needs, manages balance line allocations and, machine libraries while creating the bill of process for each machine station.

About Hansatech
Founded in the UK in 1972, the Hansatech Group comprises four plants offering turnkey contract manufacturing assembly services. With locations in King's Lynn, Poole and Cambridge totalling some 10,000 sq m, the Group's plants offer a highly flexible approach to the contract manufacturing assembly and support of electronics based products of many types and styles. Hansatech also provides a flexible 'soft start' to low cost offshore far eastern manufacturing by providing full new product introduction (NPI) manufacturing services in the UK before transferring production to the Philippines as part of its strategic alliance. As manufacturing technology has moved forward the Hansatech Group has continued to invest in state of the art assembly equipment with product now manufactured utilising 0201 and CSP surface mount technologies.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

CHELTENHAM, UK – 26th October 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management and Traceability systems for global electronics assemblers, has moved its Europe Headquarters to new offices in Cheltenham (UK), as its European operations continue to expand. The new headquarters for Aegis (Europe) comes with full presentation and training facilities.

“The increase in space and the prestigious building - the tallest in Cheltenham - allows us to hold prospect, customer and industry sponsored seminars, with product demonstration capabilities for the entire suite of Aegis manufacturing execution system solutions. We plan to simulate an entire factory from materials input, shop-floor materials control, product tracking, real-time data acquisition for line monitoring with SPC and quality data collection, repair loop and inspection data analysis and reporting through to final integration with total traceability and analytics,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe.

Aegis is showing its new mobile demonstration facilities at Productronica next month after which the unit will be installed in the new offices. In the future it will be available to move around Europe for use at customer sites and seminars.

Barrie Upton, managing director, commented, “The new office allows us to bring Aegis Europe under one roof, handles our headcount increase and provides a focus for staff, prospects and customers.”

The new address is:

3rd Floor, Eagle Tower
Montpellier Drive
Cheltenham
GLOS GL50 1TA
UK
Phone: +44 1242 698010

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

CHELTENHAM, UK – 20th October 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has appointed Justin Hardwicke to its European team, in the role of european applications consultant.

Justin joins the growing European operations and is responsible for pre-sales activities, product introduction, installation and training at Aegis. Bringing many years experience in technical sales and support, Justin previously held sales and engineering roles at Sony Manufacturing Systems Europe, and engineering positions at AIWA.

Commenting on his appointment, Justin said, “Though companies are moving manufacturing plants to Eastern Europe and the Far East to save production costs, most of the companies still producing in Europe tend to be extremely quality conscious, such as in the automotive, medical device and defence industries. I feel there is a huge potential in helping these sectors to implement manufacturing Execution Systems providing traceability, real-time quality data collection and analytics to assist them in maintaining their distinctive local manufacturing advantages. Aegis has the products to achieve this and I’m keen to become a part of the company’s growing success.”

“As part of our business expansion plans in Europe, and our move to new headquarters, we are pleased to welcome Justin to the busy team. All customers are looking to reduce manufacturing expenses and we see the cost of materials, and holding more costly stock than is necessary as being one of the most significant areas. In using Aegis software for materials control it is possible to dramatically reduce surplus material inventory and reduce line set-up times while achieving an ROI almost immediately. One of Justin’s challenges is to work with customers in this area and demonstrate the immense productivity gains and fast payback on investment,” said Barrie Upton, managing director at Aegis Europe.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

CHELTENHAM, UK – 23rd August 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced that AWS Electronics, a leading UK based CEM, has selected Aegis manufacturing information software for process definition, documentation and advanced machine programming. The suite includes three CircuitCAM concurrent licenses for all documentation creation and advanced off-line machine programming with line balancing. AWS Electronics provides medium volume electronic manufacturing services to demanding industry sectors such as aero-defence, medical, rail, food and scientific equipment.

The Aegis system allows manufacturers to merge the bill of materials with the supplied CAD data to support rapid New Product Introduction for multiple lines and multiple processes, with built-in process and BOM revision control. CircuitCAM defines the logical routings, aiding fast and consistent data preparation and delivery of programs to machines, documentation to manual assembly stations, and task and checklists to all locations from printing to AOI to repair to box-build. The Aegis software handles all AWS off-line machine programming and optimization needs, manages balance line allocations, machine libraries while creating the bill of process for each station and machine along the entire route, for later use on the factory floor.

Commenting on the recent implementation, Chris Bowman, technical director at AWS, said, “We have chosen the Aegis software to expedite and control our advanced manufacturing processes and product data definition for new product introductions. A key factor in the decision to change to Aegis was their excellence and proven ability in machine programming where the system takes full advantage of automatic, seamless integration to the machines without the need for exporting and editing. We didn’t see this anywhere else.”

"Aegis was the only provider that met all of our requirements and provided all the front end applications for NPI. They can generate all our machine programs, accept programs from legacy systems support the widest range of file formats, create electronic work instructions, and display them through web browsers. It was a pleasure to work with them,” Bowman added. “Plus the Aegis Documentation Manager can cover the whole factory floor, not just the front end processes.”

“AWS are looking to create a complete link across all business and factory processes within one seamless system for optimum manufacturing, and to build a more robust, technology-independent process defining ‘how’ products are to be built. In the UK and European contract assembly market rapid NPI is a must, and a great differentiator,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe. “Their criteria for evaluating and selecting Aegis came down to our ease of use, intelligent interfacing and technical product depth, as well as providing on-site training.”

About AWS Electronics
AWS Electronics, a UK based Contract Electronics Manufacturer (CEM), with comprehensive and modern facilities for manufacturing PCB assemblies, electrical and electronic sub-assemblies and finished products, cable and wiring harnesses for the military, aerospace, medical, rail and other demanding industries.

As part of a long-term investment programme into its people, equipment and facilities, AWS has trained most of its staff to IPC 610 and IPC 620, to the most demanding level, class 3. The company has also invested heavily into new equipment and training focusing on lead free assembly, test and inspection, including sophisticated IT systems and development of a major cable and harness assembly facility, and more recently in a fourth very high standard surface mount PCB assembly line, to keep up with demand that has grown by over 25% year-on-year for the past three years. AWS remains a competitive force in the UK market, compared to Eastern European and Far Eastern competition, because they offer a powerful combination of constantly available dedicated expertise, flexibility and service.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

CHELTENHAM, UK – 22 September 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has recently sold its manufacturing information software for process definition, documentation and advanced machine programming to electronics assembly companies LHM (in Belgium) and ABS (in Holland). This business comes through KVMS, the established and successful Aegis distributor, headquartered in Belgium. LHM and ABS have purchased CircuitCAM, documentation and advanced off-line machine programming with line balancing.

Commenting on the recent implementations, Jasper van Meerten, CEO at KVMS, said, “LHM and ABS needed to significantly reduce the time taken in preparing jobs going into production. They both selected the Aegis software based on the company’s excellence, affordable and proven ability in software solutions built up from the grass roots, the factory floor. For example, the Aegis Documentation Manager covers the whole factory floor, not just the front-end processes.”

“The Aegis systems will expedite and control these companies’ advanced manufacturing processes and product data definition for new product introductions. Both customers estimate that the software will save one extra engineer in the production preparation department,” Jasper added.

Aegis systems allow manufacturers to merge the bill of materials with the supplied CAD data to support rapid New Product Introduction for multiple lines and multiple processes, with built-in process and BOM revision control. CircuitCAM defines the logical routings, aiding fast and consistent data preparation and delivery of programs to machines, documentation to manual assembly stations, and task and checklists to all locations from printing to AOI to repair to box-build. The Aegis software handles all off-line machine programming and optimization needs, manages balance line allocations, machine libraries while creating the bill of process for each station and machine along the entire route, for later use on the factory floor.

“Their criteria for evaluating and selecting Aegis came down to our ease of use, intelligent interfacing and technical product depth, from the office to the factory floor. KVMS also provided excellent on-site training,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe. “Our partnership with KVMS, an established supplier of SMT production solutions to global manufacturers, is rapidly growing market share for us in the Benelux market.”

About KVMS
Established in 1999 and located in a new 1000sqm manufacturing facility in Turnhout, Belgium, KVMS comprises four operating divisions: SMT Equipment, Software, Services and Supplies, and has global presence through its network of subsidiaries and representatives.

The SMT Equipment and Software division delivers SMT production solutions including new and used production equipment, plus it also buys back surplus equipment. The Services division offers maintenance contracts, training facilities and repair on-site. In addition this division refurbishes used production equipment to the latest standard and specification, and offers PWB coating facilities and a competitive tape and reel service. The Supplies division provides accessories, spare parts and tools (such as bench top soldering tools) and will find virtually any part required within 24 hours.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems has announced that the company has finalized an agreement with FUJI to share integration protocols to FUJI's FujiTrax software. This partnership enables FujiTrax to seamlessly integrate to the Aegis MES systems for line monitoring, feeder setup and verification, and traceability. Now Aegis can offer FUJI and multivendor customers a singular Total Traceability and MES solution involving FUJI NXT and other FujiTrax-compliant lines.

This is a huge step forward for electronic manufacturers utilizing both FUJI and mixed equipment lines because unlike most competitive systems that offer feeder verification and traceability solutions for FUJI equipment by appending invasive and proprietary systems onto the machines, Aegis is closely cooperating with FUJI through this agreement. In this way, the software and integration elegance of FUJI software and hardware systems is fully leveraged within the Aegis enterprise solution in an elegant, forward-compatible, and FUJI-endorsed manner. Since Aegis software systems are already compatible with the overall machine mix in most manufacturing facilities, this creates the ideal solution for totally seamless factory integration.

Tony Picciola, FUJI Technical Services Manager said, "We see this partnership with AEGIS as the natural advancement of our commitment to meet and exceed the needs of our customers. At FUJI, we continually strive to set industry standards to ensure that what we offer our customers is always on the leading edge of product development. The shared integration protocols between Aegis MES and FujiTrax software provides a total factory solution for our customers that is easy to implement and cost effective."

Jason Spera, Aegis CEO, said, “We are happy to help FUJI customers who often require traceability and manufacturing execution systems in multi-vendor and enterprise applications. This integration agreement makes FUJI lines and software an integral part of Aegis-enabled factories at both the programming level via Flexa and at the MES level via FujiTrax. Aegis integration to FUJI's most current software offerings enables our joint customers to benefit from value and expertise of both FUJI equipment and Aegis’ powerful MES solutions."

About FUJI Machine
Fuji offers a full range of modular SMT production equipment and factory integration systems designed to specifically meet the needs in any production environment. Combined with a worldwide service and support system, Fuji continues to lead the way in SMT assembly. Defined and shaped by quality, Fuji's mission is to provide the board assembly industry with the ultimate in cost performance. US based operations are located in Vernon Hills, IL www.fujiamerica.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

CHELTENHAM, UK – 8 September 2005 – Aegis Europe, a leader in Manufacturing Information Management systems for global electronics assemblers, has recently launched a new-look, solutions-based website for electronics manufacturers. The new site delivers industry information in key areas including total traceability, lean manufacturing, preparing the way for 2006 RoHS/WEEE requirements in lead-free compliance and solutions for regulatory conformance.

The rebranded website supports Aegis consultative approach to helping clients and visitors gain both a broad overview of industry needs and Aegis solutions, as well as supplying some detailed ‘drill-down’ information. Business areas include shop-floor materials control, product tracking, data acquisition for SPC, and quality data analysis and reporting through to final integration with total traceability and analytics.

“We have built a cleaner, sharper site that both business leaders and engineers will find informative, covering such topics as ‘The adoption of best practices for high-reliability manufacturing’ and ‘An holistic approach to high-reliability and maximum traceability manufacturing’,” said Peter Clegg, business development director at Aegis Europe. “The positive response with increased ‘hits’ and requests for on-site visits has been truly gratifying.”

“Aegis covers a unique space in the market providing the next level of investment that electronics manufacturers will make to compliment and extend their management systems. While we mix it with ERP/MRP systems, Aegis solutions are implemented for the factory floor and the factory office, providing complete data and process control with maximum visibility for everyone from shop floor to boardroom. A new web site was necessary to highlight the business benefits,” commented Peter.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems is pleased to announce the incorporation of Universal Instruments’ optimization engine within the Aegis offline programming environment. The integration provides superior Universal Instruments Company (UIC) Genesis/Advantis/GSM platform optimization and library management supporting the many options and configurations of these platforms with total assurance of current and forward compatibility.

Recognizing that a majority of their customers use third-party software systems such as Aegis for programming both UIC and other automated equipment in their factory, UIC developed a strategy that permits software providers to automatically invoke UIC's optimizer engine within their environment in a manner that is transparent to the customer. The optimizer engine supplied by UIC also provides data checking and simulation to ensure valid results.

Now all UIC customers can complete their programming effort in a single environment using the Aegis software suite. Aegis offers a full editing environment for UIC's GSM/Genesis/Advantis/ equipment. All changes are reflected in UIC's software via CDI, CI2 or SRFF file formats.

Peter Bollinger, Director, SM Platform Products, said "We recognize that our customers depend on manufacturing software to support our equipment in their factories. We are pleased to see that Aegis has employed our strategy for embedding our optimizer engine to provide our customers with accurate and predictable results on our equipment. This improves the experience for everyone involved and ensures that equipment performance is not compromised.”

Michele Gray, Aegis OEM Channel Manager commented, "Aegis is proud to leverage UIC's optimization technology and provide our mutual customers with a seamless experience for equipment programming. Such integrations, which Aegis favors, support a better business relationship between Aegis and the machine vendor, as it is based on cooperation rather than competition. Leveraging the expertise of the machine vendor through use of their optimization objects is a clearly superior model for our mutual customers. A model ensuring superior optimization, forward-compatibility and instant response to machine architecture changes."

About Universal Instruments Company, Inc.
Universal Instruments is a global electronics productivity specialist, providing innovative circuit, semiconductor, and back-end assembly technologies and equipment, integrated system solutions, and process expertise to manufacturers in every sector of the global electronics industry.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems, today announced a greater than 100% increase in sales revenue for the first half of 2005 as compared to the same period in the prior year. This represents record performance in terms of both total revenue and percentage increase within the comparative period.

Commenting on the results, Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis, said, “Aegis’ record sales were driven primarily by a marked increase in demand for our enterprise-level, i-Series products supporting the MES, traceability, and materials control requirements of the market. These systems now account for over 60% of overall revenues. We are further gratified to see a healthy balance of existing customers expanding their deployment scope as well as adding new modules to their Aegis systems, and new customers adopting the enterprise solution at the initial sale.”

"With real-time data connections to virtually all equipment sets, and a single platform spanning NPI and the entire factory floor information challenge from kit to test to final integration, Aegis simply offers the greatest depth and scope of information management available from a single vendor," said Bob Miklosey, Aegis VP of Product Management. "We see the first-half 2005 performance, in addition to our increasingly strong market share in the stringent medical and military manufacturing applications, as market recognition of the unique Aegis technology and services offering."

During the period, Aegis added 24 new customers selecting enterprise-level deployments to its global base of over 500 customers. In addition to enterprise customer wins, the period also saw more than 50 follow-on and new NPI tool orders as well as existing customer migrations into expanded functionality or additional licensing quantities.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems has been selected by Quality Concepts Manufacturing, Inc. (QCMI), a fast rising player in the mid-size EMS field, to provide software aimed at giving QCMI a competitive edge in fast turnaround contract manufacturing. QCMI principal Bill Ostrowski states that the Aegis products eliminate the paperwork and programming time, allowing his company to be more competitive in bids for small volume, high mix, fast turnaround OEM projects.

Ostrowski, said, "OEMs with short run, high mix product needs are finding it is not profitable to shift to offshore manufacturing. We have to be adaptive to this and the Aegis software allows us to market to these smaller companies profitably."

"It takes the same amount of effort to start up a high volume project as a low volume one. Assembly documentation and creation and assembly programming once required heavy technician involvement. Aegis software does it all for us, allowing us to turn projects quickly without using up all of our support to get them set up and processed. This saves a huge amount of time and money while ensuring consistent, high quality in production."

"Aegis CircuitCAM and CheckPoint programs speed the process of transforming incoming customer data into machine programs and documents to turn boards quicker. Streamlining overall company operations eliminates- duplicated efforts, improves product throughput and improves turn-around time to our customers," Ostrowski added.

About Quality Concepts Manufacturing, Inc.
QCMI is a contract manufacturing company headquartered in Colorado Springs, Co. The company specializes in electronics and electro-mechanical assembly for a wide range of industrial, commercial and medical OEMs. The company was established in 1988.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems announced that CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions, Inc., with divisions worldwide, has selected Aegis NPI, MES, Analytical, and CAMX Data Acquisition systems. Aegis manufacturing information systems are now the CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions, Inc. solution to meet the stringent traceability requirements of the medical device manufacturing industry. With this key technology selection, CTS will be able to offer customers a scope and depth of product and manufacturing information that will satisfy the demanding traceability and data visibility requirements of their customers efficiently.

Utilizing Aegis systems, customers will be able to deliver instantaneous traceability of all product component information, process materials, machine measurements and events, and test and SPC metrics to their customers. They have a seamless solution for delivering the maximum depth and scope of information visibility to their customers.

“With this selection, CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions, Inc. has taken a proactive approach to the information visibility, regulatory and traceability demands of the markets and customers they serve,” commented Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “CTS’ application of Aegis systems into their company-wide lean initiative program demonstrates they are not satisfied to simply meet customer requirements as they exist today, but to exceed them and do so more cost effectively. Aegis is proud to be part of the CTS strategy to meet information challenges that come their way with the system they have selected today.”

About CTS
CTS is a leading designer and manufacturer of electronic components and sensors and a provider of electronics manufacturing services (EMS) to OEMs in the automotive, computer and communications markets. CTS manufactures products in North America, Europe and Asia. CTS' stock is traded on the NYSE under the ticker symbol "CTS." To find out more, visit the CTS Web site at www.ctscorp.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems is now in the process of helping transition four separate facilities of Hamilton-Sundstrand Corporation into a single, high tech facility in Puerto Rico. A spokesperson from Hamilton-Sundstrand stated that Aegis is providing all software for NPI and complete MES requirements. He went on to state that Aegis was selected for this major project because of their single-source software approach to complete manufacturing solutions and their proven willingness to be available with custom solutions throughout each step of the process.

Gary Lutfy, Hamilton-Sundstrand Operations Program Manager, Electronic Operations said, "What really attracted us to Aegis was the one solution concept, where all of the activities that we want to do in the manufacturing area integrated into one system. We're designing a completely new factory concept and new machines around the different types of products we build and Aegis will be the backbone for that. "

"We're evaluating all our current methods and moving into a much more forward thinking organization. Aegis provides a very open architecture that is extremely flexible and will allow us to easily change with the times. Cost, Quality and Schedule— those are the key benefits. With Aegis we expect to experience improved quality, cycle time and manufacturing cost."

About Hamilton Sundstrand
Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, is among the largest global suppliers of technologically advanced aerospace and industrial products. The company is headquartered in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, U.S.A. and designs and manufactures aerospace systems for commercial, regional, corporate and military aircraft. It is a major supplier for international space programs. Industrial products serve industries ranging from hydrocarbon, chemical and food processing to construction and mining.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems is pleased to announce that their powerful TestXcell software specifically developed to provide streamlined Design for Testability (DFT) capabilities, has been expanded to cover many Design for Manufacturability (DFM) checks.

This provides added value for all customers within one program. It is ideal for customers who do not own a DFM application, yet still need the benefits derived from additional checks when preparing test strategies. This natural extension of TestXcell’s capabilities make this software program an even more valuable tool for manufacturers.

TestXcell provides offline programming support for FPT and ICT equipment, ICT fixture design, fixture cost estimating, cross-referenced schematic viewing, test engineering diagnostic tools, and a pre-defined electrical model database. Users now also benefit from integral board, component, pad size and clearance checks, feature checks for tooling holes, solder resist, vias and fiducials as well as many other manufacturability checks. Plus, TestXcell produces a comprehensive electronic report for all DFM checks, streamlining communication issues across all "need-to-know" personnel.

Robert Miklosey, Aegis VP of Product Management commented, "We are dedicated to the continual expansion of TestXcell’s functionality as part of our promise of total ongoing customer support. The addition of DFM support gives our customers greater value within the application as well as higher assurance that their products are production-ready before assembly begins."

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems announce d they have finalized a partnership agreement with Sigmatek Trading Corp.

The partnership strengthens the offerings of both companies, extending the sales and technical support for Aegis products further into Asia, and adding award winning manufacturing software to the Sigmatek line of high-end electronic equipment and consumables.

"This is part of our multinational strategy to provide the benefits of the Aegis software solution to manufacturers based in Taiwan, China and other areas of Asia," Carl Brytz, Asia Business Development Manager for Aegis said.

Sigmatek will provide full sales and sales support for Aegis products in the region, including training with first line support to end users. After initial training of Sigmatek personnel, Aegis will deploy a direct technical support team based in Taiwan, specifically to assist Sigmatek in these efforts.

Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis said, "Sigmatek's excellent sales and service reputation made them the perfect partners to assist us in developing new sales opportunities in Asia and to support
our growing number of multinational customers. This expansion is part of the Aegis business strategy to extend our North American and European leadership into Asia with strong regional sales and support operations. "

Watson Liu, General Manager, Sigmatek Trading Corp. agreed, stating, "We look forward to a long relationship that will benefit both our companies and provide new resources for our customers."

About Sigmatek
Headquartered in Taiwan, Sigmatek Corp. is a fully integrated supplier of electronics assembly equipment and consumables to Taiwan, China and other regions in Asia. The company services all major electronics facilities; front-end wafer manufacturers, back-end IC packaging assembly houses and SMT manufacturing.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems announced that Kimball Electronics Group, an EMS company with divisions worldwide, plans to purchase Aegis NPI and MES software modules for all divisions. Kimball's goal was to first integrate all operations at their headquarters in Jasper, Indiana and then expand the software interface to their divisions worldwide, creating a seamless, web-centric platform for all operations control, programming and data interface.

Greg Carmer, CAD/CAM Engineering & Document Control Manager, Kimball Electronics Group, said, "We're beginning an international rollout. We have plants in Poland and Thailand and Mexico, two plants in Jasper and one in Auburn Indiana. We're 'going live' with the software in Thailand by the end of June following the successful implementation at Poland in March. We're doing a phased approach to the software, choosing those plants that would most benefit from the capabilities -- the one's that have the most urgent business needs. The goal is to be totally 'live' with the capabilities to use the Aegis software in all of our plants within one year and then add additional capabilities over the next three years."

Kimball has currently selected Aegis CircuitCAM, CheckPoint, Fusion iServer and iView modules with multiple machine interfaces for this project.

"We weren't looking for a provider of software," Carmer said. "We were looking for a partner to help us solve our business issues. Aegis really stepped up and became that partner we were looking for. The entire team has worked with our particular business needs to help us find solutions within their tools. They have put a lot of focus on their product and it shows."

Kimball is first using Aegis CircuitCAM and CheckPoint software to standardize production lines in the main facility, while simultaneously using iView to create a paperless manufacturing communication environment. The next step will be moving these capabilities out to each plant around the world with the ultimate goal of a completely web-centric, global, paperless manufacturing and communications network.

"Carmer said, "Those are the two goals that we're focusing on right now. Once we get those throughout the world, then we'll look at using additional Aegis capabilities to further enhance our productivity. We see this as a long term partnership with them to provide the business solutions that Kimball Electronic Group needs. We're excited about our future with Aegis."

Kimball Electronics Group, a segment of Kimball International, Inc., is a leading global supplier of electronic contract assemblies, providing engineering and manufacturing services to a variety of industries. Kimball International is a diversified manufacturer, employing nearly 8,000 people at operations in 14 U.S. states, Poland, Mexico and Thailand.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

SMT Hybrid Packaging, Nuremberg – Aegis Industrial Software, a leader in manufacturing information management systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced CAMx integration to KIC’s 24/7 thermal process management system, vital technology for lead-free process control. KIC is a global leader of thermal process development and control products, and a winner of multiple VISION awards.

The KIC 24/7 continuous process monitoring system provides actual process data in real time from reflow and curing ovens. The system records the temperature profile for each individual part along with all pertinent process data such as peak temperature, time above liquidous, soak time etc. Additionally, the process data’s ‘fit’ to the established process window is established using the objective and mathematical Process Window Index (PWI) concept. The KIC 24/7 will instantly warn on an out-of-control situation, as well as alarm on any ‘out-of-specification’ situation.

The KIC 24/7 acts as a data acquisition unit that feeds the Aegis Information Management system via an xLink CAMx adaptor giving users access to the hard-to-get process data for their thermal process. This Aegis/ KIC communication delivers significant added-value, providing customers with real-time process data for better shop-floor and factory-office decision making as it relates to quality, productivity and traceability.

Commenting on the partnership Jason Spera, CEO at Aegis, said, “Full access to KIC’s 24/7 thermal process management system provides our users with continuous real-time process monitoring and automated SPC, traceability and documentation. By importing and analyzing KIC temperature data we uniquely provide engineers with a 100% reflow scenario, presenting the oven data as well as the board experience data in real-time.”
“Customers are demanding complete process traceability, and thermal process management delivers all the information required to address this stringent requirement while continually improving manufacturing processes and overall product quality,” Jason added.

“The reflow process and its control is extremely sophisticated,” said Björn Dahle, president of KIC. “Data is the only way in which to define and maintain stability and many manufacturers, particularly in lead-free environments with tight process windows, require high-impact process change. This means replacing daily or weekly thermal checks with continuous, real-time thermal process monitoring. KIC systems automatically optimize and monitor the process for zero-defect production,” commented Björn.

About KIC
Founded in 1978, KIC is the source for thermal process quality and productivity systems. Dedicated to continually rethinking its products, KIC has driven the advance of thermal process technology. KIC products help manufacturers increase yields while reducing defect rates and costs. The resulting improvements in productivity allow users to maintain a competitive advantage.

Since 2000, KIC has released a completely new line of next-generation thermal process optimization and management systems to automate all phases of the thermal process. The SlimKIC 2000 profiler, KIC Navigator oven recipe search engine and the KIC Auto-Focus “profile-less” oven setup software. The KIC 24/7 automated continuous process monitor eliminate time-consuming and error-prone periodic profiles while increasing productivity and quality and provides full thermal process traceability. The sophisticated software incorporated into every KIC product includes the quality-enhancing benefits of production traceability, paperless documentation, and SPC charting. As a core competency, KIC’s in-house expertise in software development for thermal processes has been crucial factor in the company’s dramatic growth to thousands of systems in use worldwide. For more information visit www.kicthermal.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

SMT Hybrid Packaging, Nuremberg – Aegis Industrial Software, a leader in manufacturing information management systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced Version 6.0 (V6), the company’s brand new release of its NPI and MES electronics manufacturing solutions. The Aegis V6 product release includes new, process-wide solutions for complete shop-floor materials management, unparalleled support for test programming and fixture design, plus several hundred enhancements across the individual modules.

V6 provides comprehensive NPI, materials and process tracking, quality, and MES functionality for total manufacturing control, traceability and visibility.

Complete process-wide traceability includes:
 

• • Component, Tooling, Cart, Feeder, and Chemical Materials Traceability
• • Process Equipment, Test, and Inspection Process Data Traceability
• • Assembly Equipment and WIP Performance Data
• • AOI, ATE, and Inspection Measurement Data
• • Materials Declaration and Assured Lead-Free Control
• • Electronically Assured Process Control and Line Setups
• • Box-Build and System Integration Control and Traceability
• • End-of-Process Packout Guidance and Traceability

Now V6 also automates test engineering with TestXcell. TestXcell is Aegis’ new comprehensive circuit assembly test solution that provides Automated Test Equipment (ATE) programming, DFT analysis, DFM, fixture design output, and schematic viewing. TestXcell takes its place as the test data preparation engine of Aegis V6.


Synergistic with CircuitCAM for process development and CheckPoint for BOM and component engineering, TestXcell enables any test engineering department to quickly develop test programs and fixture designs, with complete tools for:
 

• • DFT/ Design for Testability
• • ATE Programming for over 25 leading ATE Systems
• • Fixture Design Output with Back Annotation and Advanced Layered Technology
• • Superior Schematics Viewer using EDA Interfaces
• • Customizable Component Database (CDB) Library Pre-populated with 36,000 Electrical Models and 1,000 Package Models
• • Easily Generated DFT Analysis and Testability Reports for Redesigns, Test Depth Analysis and Cost Calculations

With the addition of TestXcell to the Aegis NPI software suite, the circle of manufacturing information control is complete. Manufacturing and test engineers can manage the entire test process from intelligent graphical design data input through net adaptability checking, component testability checking and full mechanical fixture design to the generation of tester input lists and circuit description files.

“The introduction of Aegis Version 6.0 and TestXcell closes the loop on information control and visibility, and makes this the most robust manufacturing software solution ever presented in a single package,” said Jason Spera, CEO at Aegis. “This market-beating release represents tens of thousands of engineering and quality assurance man-hours, coupled with real-world collaboration with key Aegis customers. V6 is built to handle all the stringent requirements associated with lead-free manufacturing. It also delivers reduced operational cycle times and improved factory processes supporting a lean manufacturing environment.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA – Aegis Industrial Software, the leader in Manufacturing Productivity Systems for electronics assemblers, announces that Synchronized Manufacturing, Southern New Hampshire’s latest contract electronics manufacturer, has implemented Aegis’ NPI software to further accelerate their quick-turn capabilities. Synchronized uses Aegis software to expedite the introduction of new products, deliver machine programs to the factory floor, and electronically manage and control data for their automotive, medical, and telecom customers.

"Aegis software complements our manufacturing process with a dynamic approach,” commented Alan Kule, President. “Their platform is extremely user friendly and very effective in product preparation and process development, and this enables us to maintain an advantage for quick-turn services we provide from our New Hampshire facility. This software has allowed us to achieve an even higher level of process development accuracy, which ultimately translates into increased customer satisfaction".

Desiring a single solution for programming and document development, Synchronized deployed AEGIS flagship product CircuitCAM to meet the demands of their quick-turn manufacturing environment. These solutions drive the programming and document delivery to the factory operations.

About Synchronized Manufacturing
Recently established in late 2004, Synchronized Manufacturing Technologies, Inc. developed a business model to serve high-end technology customers with EMS service that caters to new product introduction and low volume manufacturing. Synchronized offers design, assembly and test services to customers who choose to outsource the entire New Product Introduction Process.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA – Aegis Industrial Software announced that BAE Systems in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has implemented Aegis Manufacturing Information Management Software to create a complete link among all business and factory processes within one seamless system for optimum lean manufacturing. The suite includes CheckPoint, CircuitCAM, and Fusion iView software modules.

BAE Systems needed to upgrade its software solutions to a platform that could handle all the latest technologies and integrate them into one simple format. This included offline machine programming and importing production and design information, bills of materials (BOMs) and more, plus adding digital photos and video to electronic instruction information and manual documents. The goal was to put 100% of product and production information in one place and to make the information accessible anywhere within the company at any time. After sending its criteria to four suppliers and reviewing presentations, BAE Systems selected Aegis as its provider.

Royce Binion, Manager of Business Development for Civil Aerospace for BAE Systems, said "One of the things that impressed us with the Aegis software was that when we bring in a BOM, we can append the bin location and the lane location to each part number. We have more than 20,000 places to search for a part on our production floor. When an operator is using the iView software, he is able to point to any component on the circuit card and receive the component part number, where it's used, and the reference designator information on it. He’ll also get a lane and bin location so he can quickly go right to the part.

Out of all the packages, Aegis was the only one that tied the BOM to the CAD drawing enough to where we can just point at a reference designator in Fusion iView and get all the component information."

CheckPoint software allows BAE Systems to pull in any user selectable information for each job and to link parts to bin location. These features, Binion said, are critical for maintaining a true lean manufacturing facility.

"We had quite a bit of criteria we demanded. Aegis was the only provider that met all of our requirements and provided all the front end applications for new product introduction," Binion said. "They can generate all our machine programs, create electronic work instructions, and display them through Web browsers."


About BAE Systems
BAE Systems is an international company engaged in the development, delivery, and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems in the air, on land, at sea, and in space.

BAE Systems North America is one of America’s foremost national security, aerospace and information systems companies. It is a leading provider of electronic and information-based systems and knowledge-based solutions that meet our customers’ mission effectiveness and operational safety needs. BAE Systems North America employs more than 30,000 people at sites across the United States and the United Kingdom and generates more than $5 billion in annual sales.

BAE Systems North America’s Fort Wayne facility manufactures electronic circuit cards that go into high-reliability electronic controls for aerospace. The controls are integral to all General Electric commercial engines and military F-18s, F-16s, F-15s, the new Joint Strike Fighter and the F-22 Raptor. Since these controls must operate in harsh environments, every component goes through rugged environmental testing and screening. Every step, from incoming parts to final test, is processed with the highest level of reliability. The Fort Wayne facility runs five different surface-mount technology assembly lines, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a very high mix of assemblies.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA – Aegis Industrial Software, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems was pleased to accept top honors for Service Excellence from UP Media Group Inc., for the fifth consecutive year.

Presented annually at APEX, the Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) are presented by Circuits Assembly magazine to companies that receive the highest customer service ratings as judged by their own customers. The award is derived from responses to in-depth online surveys where customers are asked to evaluate the participants’ dependability, ease of use, responsiveness, technology, and overall value for the price. Aegis took the title in the Manufacturing / Supply Chain Management Software category with a service rating of 4.92 out of a possible 5, virtually eliminating the competition

Brian Bunn, Aegis Customer Service Manager, gave kudos to the hard working Aegis service department, saying, "It's quite an accomplishment to sweep this award category every year its been offered. The dedicated work of our technical support team and their commitment to going above and beyond the needs of our customers is the reason we’ve held this honor for half a decade. It is their award."

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Anaheim CA, APEX 2005 – Aegis Industrial Software, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced its new electrical test program generation product, called TestXcell. TestXcell, derived from Digitaltest’s C-Link, has a proven history and market acceptance with over 900 users worldwide. An OEM agreement between Digitaltest GmbH, Herbert Schmidt GmbH and Aegis Inc. allows Aegis to deliver an unrivalled best-in-class NPI suite, handling BOM and CAD import and compare, SMT line programming, documentation creation and now electrical test program generation.

Jason Spera, CEO at Aegis, said “An increasing number of customers were asking Aegis to add ET into our portfolio. ET is a specialized discipline so when we heard about C-Link from Herbert Schmidt we immediately started discussions and I am really pleased with the result. The engineering philosophies and strategies between our companies were synergistic from the very beginning. This alignment manifested itself through a strikingly similar, look and feel and general product constructs, it is difficult to tell them apart. With a dedicated 20 person R&D team we can expect rapid support and development of new functionality according to our roadmap for TestXcell. We already have application engineer support available to us in the US, and in Europe our application specialist, Peter Bongartz, is a veteran test expert.”

“Grant Boctor, president at Digitaltest commented, “I am very happy to have Aegis as a global reseller of our test software, with their large installed base, over 550 sites world-wide, we believe it will not be too long before TestXcell is established as the ET market leader. TestXcell’s heritage is built upon a mature product developed over 12 years to support the most demanding test markets and with a comprehensive list of supported machines, as well as over 50 CAD inputs.”

Herbert Schmidt GmbH is the international marketing arm for Digitaltest’s C-Link, headed by Herbert Schmidt, president and the ex-owner of Fabmaster, who knows a thing-or-two about test and the global test market. “The combination of Aegis market-leading machine programming and documentation tools, now with TestXcell, will provide users with unrivalled performance benefits all from a single source. My company’s aim is to support Aegis and its global customers to gain maximum benefit from TestXcell. The expertise within our R&D team will provide continuous product development to meet and exceed market requirements,” quoted Herbert Schmidt.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Anaheim CA, APEX 2005 – Aegis Industrial Software, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems is rolling out the most significant new version of their enterprise software ever. Version 6.0 (V6) was introduced at APEX 2005 and is the realization of tens of thousands of engineering and quality assurance man-hours, and a unique real-world collaboration with key Aegis customers.

Aegis V6 includes all-new, process-wide solutions for total shop-floor materials management,
unparalleled support for test programming and fixture design, plus several hundred enhancements across each individual product from Checkpoint and CircuitCAM through their award-winning quality system.

V6 provides comprehensive NPI, Materials Management, and MES functionality for total manufacturing control and visibility. Complete process-wide traceability includes:
 

• • Component, Tooling, Cart, Feeder, and Chemical Materials Traceability
• • Process Equipment, Test, and Inspection Process Data Traceability
• • Assembly Equipment and WIP Performance Data
• • AOI, ATE, and Inspection Measurement Data
• • Materials Declaration and Assured Lead-Free Control
• • Electronically Assured Process Control and Line Setups
• • Box-Build and System Integration Control and Traceability
• • End-of-Process Packout Guidance and Traceability

Now V6 also automates test engineering with "TestXcell". TestXcell supports complete test engineering for ICT, flying probe, fixture design, and schematic capture and viewing. TestXcell takes its place as the test data preparation engine of Aegis V6. Synergistic with CircuitCAM for process development and CheckPoint for BOM and component engineering, TestXcell enables any test engineering department to quickly develop test programs and fixture designs, with complete tools for:
 

• • DFT/ Design for Testability
• • ATE Programming for over 25 leading ATE Systems
• • Fixture Design Output with Back Annotation and Advanced Layered Technology
• • Superior Schematics Viewer using EDA Interfaces
• • Customizable Component Database (CDB) Library Pre-populated with 36,000 Electrical Models and 1,000 Package Models
• • Easily Generated DFT Analysis and Testability Reports for Redesigns, Test Depth Analysis and Cost Calculations
•  

With the introduction of Version 6.0 and TestXcell, Aegis closes the loop on information control and visibility, making this the most robust manufacturing software solution ever presented in a single package.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems announced that Computrol, a rapidly expanding EMS based in Meridian, Idaho has selected and deployed Aegis NPI and MES software systems as key tools to not only update their overall electronics manufacturing processes, but as a strategic marketing tool to differentiate the high level of service Computrol offers OEM customers.

Computrol is using the Aegis Checkpoint system for bringing in data on all new customer assemblies. Then they use CircuitCAM to program the assemblies and creating online documentation. They are simultaneously rolling in all data for existing and past assemblies for a complete automated product-to-customer web-centric data archive.

Jon Hanson, Sales and Marketing Manager, Computrol said, "We use Aegis to show our customers how efficiently we electronically process their data, virtually eliminating human error. Aegis takes us from BOM and CAD to machine programs and electronic documentation. It's a huge time and money saver and we pass this faster time, higher accuracy and cost savings on to our customers. We're a low volume, high complexity, high mix EMS company. Aegis MES software allows us to track projects in real time through the entire system. It allows us to make better use of inventory and allows us to leverage materials so we can run a tight, lean manufacturing program with no wasted time or efforts."

Eric Bowen, Manufacturing Engineer noted that the basis of the Aegis system that he appreciates most is the ability to create programs for all their different machines quickly and efficiently. Because CircuitCAM can generate and output programs for all the machines on the production line, regardless of the make or manufacturer, it allows Computrol the flexibility to move programming from plant to plant and from machine to machine within the factory very easily.

Bowen said, "When we were looking for a software provider, I called Fuji to find out who they recommended. Fuji told us to contact Aegis for a fully integrated system with a seamless connection to FUJI's Flexa programming software. From there we called Aegis for a demonstration and saw they had the most to offer when compared to other software solution providers."

About Computrol
Headquartered in Meridian, Idaho, Computrol operates two EMS facilities specializing in proprietary assemblies for the medical, high end communications, industrial controls and power supply OEMs. Through their reputation for excellent service and technical capabilities, the company has been experiencing steady growth, even though the downturn period that saw many EMS companies struggling. Now that the economy has turned around, the company is experiencing an even more robust growth trend, aided by their solid marketing plans and a lean manufacturing strategy.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Information Management Systems will introduce the latest addition to their NPI software suite at APEX 2005. TestXcell, Aegis' comprehensive circuit assembly test solution, provides Automated Test Equipment (ATE) programming, DFT analysis, fixture design output, and schematic viewing.

With the addition of TestXcell, the circle of manufacturing information control is complete. Manufacturing and test engineers can manage the entire test process from intelligent graphical design data input through net adaptability checking, component testability checking and full mechanical fixture design to the generation of tester input lists and circuit description files.

TestXcell Provides:

• • Design Data Importing: CAD, EDA, BOM files - import, edit and merge.
• • Design for Testability: Identify problems with instant feedback for immediate correction.
• • ATE Programming: Expedite programming for all test platforms.
• • Fixture Design Output: Supports all major industry formats as well as user designs.
• • Schematic Viewing: Superior viewing using EDA interfaces.
• • Component Database: Pre-populated with 36,000 electrical models and 1,000 package models.
• • Design Data Exporting: Easily export merged BOM and CAD data.
• • Reporting: Complete in-depth reports with associated analysis and costing data.

TestXcell's software platform is proven and tested. It is intuitive in it's operation, making it easy to implement and immediately profitable for the user. It supports all major ATE systems and CAD import formats, providing the perfect complement to all Aegis NPI and MES products.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Cheltenham, UK / Stockholm – Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Limited, a leader in manufacturing productivity software systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced the appointment of Eltraco as its reseller in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Aegis now has complete coverage throughout Scandinavia with Perel Oy as its reseller in Finland and the Baltic States.

As a best-in-class vendor for manufacturing productivity systems, Aegis solutions address the full spectrum of manufacturing operations from new product introduction (NPI), paperless creation, delivery and electronic sign-off and manufacturing execution systems (MES), based on scalability, integration, superior technology and service.

Founded in 1994, Eltraco supplies an extensive range of equipment, products, consumables and software solutions for SMT manufacturing to Scandinavian electronics manufacturing companies, including used machinery. The company has considerable experience in factory automation and SMT machines including screen-printing, pick & place, soldering, inspection, and manufacturing software and they operate a machine maintenance division.

“Our customers are always looking for the most innovative and effective way in which to deploy manufacturing solutions. We provide a full-service SMT package that addresses all their needs in hardware and software. The Aegis NPI and MES solutions are perfect for our market where users need to launch new products quickly, set up lines correctly, continuously improve quality and view/access all in real-time,” said Mikael Thomsen, sales manager at Eltraco. “Traceability and materials management are also key especially with the introduction of lead free.”

Peter Clegg, director of european business development at Aegis, said “Eltraco is an established sales partner for us in the western Scandinavian region with an proven track record, supported by experience and depth in the manufacturing industry. They have formed a dedicated sales and technical support team to manage the Aegis product range and this focus is already bringing in new business for us.”

“We have adopted both a direct and multi-tiered indirect business model to grow our existing user base in Europe, supported by an expanding network of experienced value-added resellers (VARS) and European-based machine vendor partnerships,” Peter added.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Cheltenham, UK – Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Limited, a leader in manufacturing productivity software systems for global electronics assemblers, has announced the appointment of Herbert Schmidt GmbH as its principal reseller for Central Europe. Herbert Schmidt GmbH will now represent two significant software products, C-Link from Digitaltest, a best-in-class Electrical Test program generation suite, and Aegis CircuitCAM and CheckPoint which form part of Aegis New Product Introduction suite for SMT program generation and document creation and delivery. The company will also market Aegis Manufacturing Execution suite covering product and materials tracking, quality with statistical process controls, electronic sign-off and full level-four traceability.

The senior management team of Herbert Schmidt GmbH - Herbert Schmidt (president) and Wolfgang Reuber (vice president) - has several decades of experience in the distribution of solutions for the electronics manufacturing industry with a strong commitment to customer support. Prior, the company had a controlling interest in Fabmaster S.A., the international vendor of CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) software quoted on the Paris New Market, up until its acquisition by Tecnomatix Technologies (NASDAQ: TCNO).

Commenting on the new partnership, Herbert Schmidt said, “We are very excited about working with Aegis in this territory. We first spoke to them at Apex 2004 and have been following their progress very closely, the power of their NPI suite is remarkable and the MES suite is leading the field with apparently no comparable products on the market. I am hearing of more companies that say they have not realised the benefits of previous investments due to product confusion after supplier acquisitions. This is a real shame but provides great potential for Herbert Schmidt GmbH offering industry proven solutions based on scalability, integration, superior technology and service.”

Peter Clegg, director of European business development at Aegis, said “I have known Herbert for sometime and have been impressed by his previous successes and so am delighted he has decided to represent Aegis in this very important European territory. Peter Bongartz is Aegis’ local German-speaking applications specialist, and will support Herbert Schmidt GmbH with full product sales assistance. We also expect to have our German software product translations completed within the next months. This high level of local support coupled with the excellence of Herbert Schmidt’s sales and marketing and Aegis best-in-class products is the right approach for the demanding German, Swiss and Austrian markets.”

“In Europe we are seeing a great interest in all our solutions. Customers are always looking for successful ways in which to optimise all the business and process intelligence that exists in most factories, in order to launch new products quickly, set up lines correctly, continuously improve quality and view/access in real-time,” Peter Clegg added. “Product genealogy and traceability are also important issues for lead-free manufacturing in Europe.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Cheltenham, UK – Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Limited, a leader in manufacturing productivity software systems for global electronics assemblers, has recently announced the appointment of Detech Europe Limited (Detech) as its reseller in the UK, and Prime Option as its reseller in Ireland. As a best-in-class vendor for manufacturing productivity systems, Aegis solutions address the full spectrum of manufacturing operations from new product introduction (NPI) to manufacturing execution systems (MES), based on scalability, integration, superior technology and service.

Both Detech and Prime Option are well established in their territories, with over 40 man-years experience in electronics manufacturing sector. They are selling the complete range of Aegis software solutions as part of their full-line system offering to customers. Detech is also a distributor for the Tyco Automation Group in the UK, and both Detech and Prime Option sell the DEPO Group Benchtop and Inline AOI systems.

“Our customers are always looking for successful ways in which to optimise all the business and process intelligence that exists in factories, in order to launch new products quickly, set up lines correctly, continuously improve quality and view/access all in real-time,” said David Erskine, managing director at Detech. “And in looking to extend our product portfolio we find that the Aegis solutions are perfect for our target markets.”

“I have been familiar with the Aegis products since their launch in 1997 and was impressed by their simplicity and stability at that time, tools designed by engineers for engineers. The Aegis products have expanded into a full suite of manufacturing products that maintain the core values of ease of use and stability, as well as being totally modular,” said Finbarr O'Mahony, managing director at Prime Option.

Aegis offers a cost-effective modular solution focusing on new product introduction (NPI) that includes data validation, process-to-asset mapping, routing, documentation creation and paperless delivery using web browsers. The company also provides manufacturing execution solutions covering shop floor engineering, process engineering, materials management, real-time integration and analysis that integrate into an electronics manufacturer’s current structure optimizing all existing assets.

Commenting on the appointment of Detech in the UK and Prime Option in Ireland, Peter Clegg, director of european business development at Aegis, said “We have adopted both a direct and multi-tiered indirect business model to grow our existing user base in Europe, supported by an expanding network of experienced value-added resellers (VARS) and European-based machine vendor partnerships. Both distributors bring much experience from the UK and Irish manufacturing markets and have a similar company culture to ours, in terms of customer partnerships, total solution offerings and in-depth customer support.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Cheltenham, UK – Earlier this year Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in manufacturing productivity software systems for global electronics assemblers, announced the formation of a European subsidiary, Aegis Industrial Software (Europe) Limited which is headquartered in the UK. Since trading began, Aegis Europe has grown the existing European customer base by 25% with significant new business coming from electronics manufacturing companies, including Bosch, Celestica, Dage, Plexus and Raytheon.

The European operations are headed by Barrie Upton, managing and operations director, and Peter Clegg, European business development director. Both directors, with many years experience in the European electronics design and manufacturing market, have proven track records in bringing US software and hardware companies to Europe and rapidly establishing them as market leaders. Heading up customer support is Christian Teasdel, who brings more than four years’ experience in Aegis software and extensive knowledge of assembly machines and processes.

Commenting on Aegis’ successful start to working directly in Europe, Peter Clegg said, “We have adopted both a direct and multi-tiered indirect business model to grow our existing user base in Europe, supported by an expanding network of experienced value-added resellers (VARS) and European-based machine vendor partnerships. We are already establishing Aegis as the vendor of choice for manufacturing productivity systems, and are actively looking for additional representation in several European regions, including Germany, France, Hungary and Poland.”

“This expansion is part of the Aegis business strategy to extend its North American leadership into Europe and Asia with strong regional sales and support operations. Aegis is offering a truly cost effective modular solution focusing initially on new product introduction. This includes data validation, process-to-asset mapping, routing, documentation creation and paperless delivery using web browsers. Aegis also offers manufacturing execution solutions covering shop floor engineering, process engineering, limit setting with alarms, real-time quality collection and analysis, and real time monitoring,” said Jason Spera, CEO at Aegis.

“These products answer the world-class manufacturing data management needs of the European market. Manufacturers are no longer willing or able to hire specialized staff, redesign their processes or spend many man-months implementing solutions. They want easy to use, scaleable web-based system solutions to integrate into their current structure utilizing current assets,” Jason continued.

“In Europe we are seeing a great interest in our NPI solutions. Customers are always looking for successful ways in which to optimize all the business and process intelligence that exists in most factories, in order to launch new products quickly, set up lines correctly, continuously improve quality and view/access all of this in real-time,” stated Peter. “Product genealogy and traceability are also becoming important issues for lead-free manufacturing in Europe.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Productivity Systems for electronics assemblers, was recognized for industry innovation and best-in-class customer service by earning two coveted awards during APEX 2004 in Anaheim CA.

On Monday February 23rd, Circuits Assembly Magazine presented Aegis with their 4th consecutive Annual Service Excellence Award in the Manufacturing Software Category. Participating companies were rated on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (superior) in five customer satisfaction categories: dependability; ease of use; responsiveness; technology; and value for price. Aegis earned top honors with an overall score of 4.86.

On Tuesday February 24th, Aegis’ iMonitor web-based line monitoring system with enterprise SPC capability was recognized with the 2003 SMT Vision Award from SMT Magazine. The award was presented by SMT Magazine’s Publisher John Bubello to John Walls, CTO, Jason Spera, CEO, and Dan Walls, COO during an Awards ceremony held at the Hilton in Anaheim, CA.

“My thanks extend to our customers and the team members of the Aegis organization for making this possible. We look at these awards as independent confirmation that Aegis continues to build innovative software while delivering unparalleled customer satisfaction and service.” commented Jason Spera, Aegis CEO. “Software buyers are becoming very savvy and they demand results from their investment. Four consecutive years of service awards validates that Aegis leads the industry in successful customer deployments and return on investment.”

Aegis iMonitor v 2.0 with SPC earned the Vision Award. This web-based software system is the most comprehensive, enterprise-wide production and machine monitoring system for total visibility and process control. The system operates on XML CAMX data, which Aegis has made possible through its partnerships with over 30 machine vendors, and its xLink CAMX Transmitters embedded in the machines. iMonitor is also compatible with legacy GEM and proprietary protocols. iMonitor Version 2.0 introduces the industry’s only enterprise-wide SPC engine. This engine enables companies to analyze any variable or attribute data collected from operators or machines, and reacts to process variability through Westinghouse, AT&T, Nelson, and Shewhart SPC methods. iMonitor brings visibility and real-time process control across machines, lines, and factories.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, USA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Productivity Systems for global electronics assemblers, has formed a wholly owned international subsidiary, Aegis Industrial Software Europe Limited head quartered in the UK. With 75 European customers, 6 Value Added Resellers and 10 European based machine vendor partners, Aegis is already well established in Europe.

The European team is headed by Barrie Murray-Upton, Managing and Operations Director, and Peter Clegg, Business Development Director. The Directors have proven track records of bringing US CAD/CAM companies to Europe and rapidly establishing them as market leaders. Heading up customer support is Christian Teasdel, who brings more than four years’ experience in Aegis software through its machine vendor partners. Teasdel has worked across Europe within the electronic manufacturing industry. The subsidiary will scale throughout the course of 2004.

Jason Spera, CEO, said, “This expansion is part of the Aegis business strategy to extend its North American leadership into Europe and Asia with strong regional sales and support operations. This enhances our support for existing global customers and makes our products more accessible to European manufacturers. I am delighted to have Barrie and Peter join us with their extensive knowledge of the European manufacturing market place. We feel our software systems fit remarkably well into the sophisticated, quality driven market that European electronic manufacturing has become.” Spera noted, “Aegis’ coherent solution from NPI through MES includes quality, SPC, traceability, and machine monitoring. This uniquely answers the world-class manufacturing data management needs of the European market. Manufacturers are no longer willing or able to hire specialized staff, redesign their processes or spend many man-months implementing solutions. They want easy to use, scaleable web-based system solutions to integrate into their current structure utilizing current assets.”

Peter observed that Aegis’ reputation for delivering quality product and service, as evidenced by winning the coveted Service Excellence Award for three consecutive years, is just what the Europe market demands. “There has always been a wish to make use of the business and process intelligence that exists in most factories to produce quality products utilizing real-time visibility of all the processes to reduce costs and thus increase profitability. With the market emerging from recession we are well positioned to grow Aegis’ business in Europe” states Clegg, adding "product genealogy and traceability will also become important issues for lead free manufacturing.”

The business model Aegis Europe will adopt is one of direct and indirect sales, “We will utilize the independent regional VAR model, supplemented by specialized local language sales representatives” commented Murray-Upton. “Aegis employs this model in the US delivering benefit to all parties. Peter and I are pleased with the enthusiasm and approach of Aegis’ existing European VAR’s and partner companies, and we are really looking forward to establishing Aegis as the vendor of choice for Manufacturing Productivity Systems.” Aegis Europe will be actively looking for additional representation in many European regions, specifically France and Germany.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Productivity Systems for electronics assemblers, announces that Accutron Incorporated, Connecticut’s leading contract electronics manufacturer has implemented Aegis’ NPI and MES software systems. Accutron uses Aegis software to expedite the introduction of new products, deliver paperless instructions to the floor, and manage the quality and traceability of their automotive, medical, and telecom assemblies.

"Aegis software complements our manufacturing process with a dynamic approach” commented Vijay Faldu, President of Accutron. “Their platform is extremely user friendly and very effective in product tracking throughout our facility. This software has allowed us to achieve an even higher level of process control which ultimately translates into increased customer satisfaction".

Desiring a single solution spanning the factory office and factory floor, Accutron deployed CircuitCAM, CheckPoint, FUSION iServer, iView, iTrac, and iQ to meet the demands of their entire manufacturing process. These solutions drive CAD and bill of materials process, revision management, document delivery to the factory, and product tracking and quality analysis in real-time.

“Working with Accutron on this successful deployment of Aegis software has been particularly gratifying for us.” commented Jason Spera, CEO Aegis. “As a former user of a competitor’s CIM software, Accutron has an acute appreciation for the architectural and functional advantages of the Aegis system, which helped deliver rapid and broad deployment of the solution throughout their business and manufacturing processes. Their deployment and use of our web-based system from product introduction through execution is a highly visible differentiator when they promote their services to their customers. Aegis is pleased to be a contributor to their competitive advantage.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software, a leader in electronic assembly software, announces it has joined the Universal third party software program. Aegis has developed interfaces to Universal Instruments software to integrate support for Universal products into the Aegis iMonitor system.

Under this agreement Aegis will utilize standard interfaces in Universal Instruments manufacturing automation software suite to allow data retrieval by Aegis monitoring software. Aegis has already developed an interpreter for Universal’s DMM database structure providing translation into IPC-standard “CAMX” data. This combined solution, which comprises Universal’s Line Communicator software system with the Aegis xLink CAMX transmitter, has been tested and verified for all Universal surface mount products including GSM UPS+ (Windows based system), GSM UPS (OS/2 based system), and HSP (4796 & 4797).

The combined package offers Aegis end-users a single solution to monitor real-time data from Universal Surface Mount lines, and leverage this information with Aegis web-based product tracking, component traceability, quality, and SPC solutions.

In the future, integration with Universal’s programming tools will simplify the access to Universal machines from Aegis programming tools. Aegis NPI tools will interface seamlessly with Universal Instruments’ GSM platform products and the HSP chipshooter range.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, the leader in Manufacturing Productivity Systems for electronics assemblers, announces that EMS provider Nextek Inc. has purchased their NPI and MES software modules to further advance efficiency, quality and customer service. Nextek is deploying the Aegis web-centric platform for the preparation and execution of their precision electronic and optoelectronic assembly and engineering services for customers.

“As our company grew, we found that the initial CAD/CAM solutions we implemented did not adequately support our operations and enable us to provide the best possible service to our customers”, says Phil Yates, CTO of Nextek. “Aegis’ software gives us complete control of the manufacturing process: From receipt and conversion of design data and bill of materials, to production monitoring and materials tracking, we use a single system that allows our customers and partners to be involved in the entire process.”

Nextek has selected CircuitCAM, CheckPoint, and Fusion iServer for expediting new product introductions and engineering change control, and will implement iView, iTrac, iQ, iMonitor and iPortal for manufacturing execution.

“Nextek is renowned for its quality and innovation, as evidenced by their numerous industry awards. Aegis is particularly pleased that a company so focused on world-class practices chose our complete platform to propel their operations to the next level”, commented Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis. “Nextek found that the Aegis solution is the only truly integrated, web-centric system spanning the entire scope of manufacturing information challenges in their factory. This singular, web-accessible solution holds unique value for their operations, and to the services they offer customers.

Nextek utilizes the Aegis Checkpoint product on the front end to verify and clean all incoming customer data. Once complete, clean data is made available, the Aegis CircuitCAM product is utilized to create process documentation and machine programs. “A key driver for us is that Aegis uses our pick and place equipment database for pick and place programming,” states Rick Gunn, Nextek’s Director of Engineering. “This allows all updates from the line to be captured immediately. Our previous CAD/CAM tools did not use this design, so we constantly had to relearn the same things. Also, there is an ongoing relationship with Aegis and our placement equipment manufacturer, which will benefit Nextek as they continue to develop their product for other users of the same equipment.”

Once the analysis and conversion of customer data is completed and manufacturing activity is ready to commence, other Aegis modules will enable the company to:
 

• • Communicate information in a common, paperless format (iView).
• • Monitor Work In Process and material movement (iTrac).
• • Measure and respond to quality metrics (iQ and iMonitor).
• • Enable customers, suppliers and other partners to participate in the mfr. process (iPortal).

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

San Clemente, California – YESTech, Inc., a leading worldwide provider of automated optical inspection and high-resolution X-ray inspection systems for the printed circuit board assembly and advanced semiconductor-packaging industries, has entered into a strategic partnership with Aegis Industrial Software. YESTech and Aegis will adapt Aegis' popular CircuitCAM software for CAD, Gerber, ASCII/Centroid and other file conversion for auto-training YESTech’s x-ray and optical inspection systems.

CircuitCAM will transform more than thirty-two different design data formats into the standard YESTech machine format, providing automatic machine training. This delivers rapid new product introductions and engineering changes, while eliminating manual processes traditionally required with other computer-integrated manufacturing, or CIM, software products. The user-friendly software also offers YESTech customers bills of materials management, separation of through-hole and surface mount components, and optional program generation for many other types of production machinery. For larger enterprises, this partnership integrates YESTech machines seamlessly into factories utilizing the extended suite of Aegis manufacturing information systems.

“YESTech’s partnership with Aegis offers our customers complimentary technologies which will further improve their bottom-line returns,” says Don Miller, CEO, YESTech. Aegis’ CEO, Jason Spera added, “Our work with YESTech has created an elegantly integrated software and hardware combination. The solution eliminates errors and makes the factory more responsive to product launches and engineering changes.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA – For the third consecutive year, Aegis Industrial Software Corporation was awarded the coveted Service Excellence Award at the recent APEX Show in Anaheim, CA. The annual awards program, sponsored by the Circuits Assembly magazine, honors industry suppliers for excelling in several categories of customer satisfaction. Aegis surpassed its competitors each year the award has been offered in the category of Manufacturing Software. In addition to the software satisfaction award, in 2003 Aegis tied for the highest satisfaction rating across all supplier categories.

The award is derived from customer responses to in-depth online surveys. Customers are asked to evaluate the participants’ dependability, ease of use, responsiveness, technology, and overall value for the price.

Jason Spera, Aegis’ CEO said of the award, “Aegis is grateful for the resounding customer endorsement represented by this third consecutive customer satisfaction award. Our company strives to consistently engineer the finest manufacturing software system available, promote it honestly in the sales process, and back it with world-class customer support. This latest award validates that our customers value the results of this mission and consider Aegis a partner who has honored its commitments.”

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

Philadelphia PA – Aegis Industrial Software announces the successful launch of its groundbreaking machine communications technology, xLink, by major equipment vendors at the recent 2003 APEX exhibition in Anaheim, CA. xLink is incorporated into the machines of major placement, process, test, and inspection vendors making their real-time data easily accessible. It enables web-based monitoring and communications on the factory floor via the IPC CAMX data standards. Machines carrying Aegis ‘xLink badging’ were seen in the booths of eight vendors, while certain exhibits used xLink on actual running lines and monitored them in real-time through AEGIS iMonitor web portals .

xLink was developed by Aegis in conjunction with equipment suppliers as an easily integrated, cost-effective, robust, and standardized communications technology to make every machine in the factory a web information server. The XML data streams from the machines are standardized per the IPC CAMX standards, allowing any third party to easily harvest valuable run-time information, remotely control machines, and communicate production programs as needed throughout the floor.

The swift adoption of the technology by leading vendors, its ubiquitous presence at APEX, and the closure of four additional vendor integration agreements during the exhibition clearly herald a new age of effective data management on the factory floor. Further still, the iMonitor web-based performance monitoring system was featured at the exhibit on true production lines, revealing the value of real-time information harvested by xLink when made available to process engineering, quality engineering, and business leaders.

Jason Spera, Aegis CEO, said of the xLink launch, “Creating a software technology and having it so quickly incorporated into machines by their vendors is very exciting. The xLink launch was more than a product launch, it represents the emergence of a new de facto standard for factory information communications, built on IPC standard data formats. Aegis looks forward to completing machine integrations with many more vendors in the near future, and to providing systems like iMonitor to fully utilize the information xLink harnesses. We’re gratified to have developed a technology that will enable real improvement in the industry through true factory information access.”

Machine vendors displaying xLink badging on their equipment included Assembleon, Cookson Electronics Equipment, Christopher, MYDATA, Tyco Electronics, Europlacer, Ekra, VI Technology, and YesTech.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation has been named to Deloitte & Touche's prestigious “Technology Fast 50" Program for the Delaware Valley area, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the area. Rankings are based on the percentage of growth in fiscal year revenues from 1997-2001. Aegis’ revenue increase of 878 percent resulted in an 11th ranking overall.

Aegis’ CEO Jason Spera credits software engineering, award-winning customer service, and a loyal customer base with the company's extraordinary revenue growth. He said, “This award is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the people at Aegis since our founding. Aegis’ guiding mission has been to design visionary software for delivering unmatched manufacturing productivity improvement, and to back it with the best support in the industry. This award suggests that Aegis customers agree we’ve remained true to our mission and our commitments, for they fueled our progress ahead of competitors. Our thanks go to our customers, for being good partners in the exciting growth of Aegis.”

Michael Purcell, Partner-in-Charge at Deloitte & Touche commented, "In today’s economy, triple-digit revenue growth is an exceptional accomplishment. We commend Aegis for making the commitment to technology and delivering on the promise of market longevity. We are proud to honor Aegis as a Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50 winner."

To qualify for the Technology Fast 50, companies must have had operating revenues of at least $50,000 in 1997 and $1,000,000 in 2001, must be public or private companies headquartered in the Delaware Valley, and be "technology companies" defined as companies that own proprietary technology which contributes to a significant portion of the company’s operating revenues or devotes a high percentage of effort to research and development of technology.

Winners of the 20 regional Technology Fast 50 programs in the United States and Canada are automatically entered in the Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 500 program, which ranks North America’s top 500 fastest growing technology companies. For more information on the Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50 or Technology Fast 500 programs, visit www.fast500.com.

About Deloitte & Touche
Deloitte & Touche, one of the nation's leading professional services firms, provides assurance and advisory, tax, and management consulting services through nearly 30,000 people in more than 100 U.S. cities. The firm is dedicated to helping its clients and its people excel. Known as an employer of choice for innovative human resources programs, Deloitte & Touche has been recognized as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For in America" by Fortune magazine for five consecutive years. Deloitte & Touche refers to Deloitte & Touche LLP and related entities. Deloitte & Touche is the US national practice of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is a Swiss Verein, and each of its national practices is a separate and independent legal entity. For more information, please visit Deloitte & Touche's web site at http://www.deloitte.com/us For m.ore information on the Technology Fast 50 and Technology Fast 500 programs, please visit www.fast50.com.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – With the release of FUSION 5.0, AEGIS strengthens its position as the technological leader in manufacturing productivity software. Version 5.0 is electronics manufacturing’s first product data and process management software utilizing the empowering technologies of the Microsoft .NET architecture. The web-centric paperless factory, product tracking, quality management, and extended enterprise visibility functions of FUSION are now delivered through this state-of-the-art software architecture. The FUSION 5.0 Information Server is constructed of XML web services, offering users unprecedented efficiency, scalability, and openness to third party systems and custom integration. To accommodate any demand on any IT platform, the FUSION back-end now operates on Windows, Unix, AIX, and Linux servers, and supports multi-threaded, load balanced logic servers, web servers, and data servers.

“Utilization of XML web services within FUSION supports the needs of our customers now and in the future,” said John J. Walls, AEGIS’ Chief Technology Officer. “The fully documented and easily integrated web services enable more efficient future development at AEGIS, and more elegant system integration for customers. It also allows the true utilization of multiple servers to support our customers deploying throughout larger enterprises with enormous transaction loads.”
The XML web services architecture of FUSION 5.0 is the latest milestone in the AEGIS tradition of innovation back to the segment’s first 32 bit release, followed by the first system utilizing the component object model of development, to the first Distributed iNternet Architecture (DNA) software architecture in electronics assembly. FUSION 5.0 offers customers the most scalable and integrated web-centric solution for product data management, process engineering, paperless documentation, product tracking and genealogy, quality, collection, repair, and extended enterprise visibility.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, global supplier of manufacturing productivity software, announces an OEM agreement with Cookson Electronics Equipment Group, a world leader for single source process solutions for the PCB assembly and semiconductor packaging industries. Under this agreement, the Electronics Group will exclusively offer CircuitCAM CIM software for rapidly converting CAD and Gerber data into complete machine programs.

"Manufacturers throughout the global electronics industry are continuing to face mounting product challenges and complexities in what can only be described as a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive market,” says Pierre de Villeméjane, president, Cookson Electronics Equipment Group (formerly Speedline Technologies).

“Cookson Electronics Equipment Groups’ agreement with Aegis, a well-respected leader in state-of-the-art manufacturing software, represents a major step toward helping manufacturers meet long-held demands for a truly integrated line solution. Through this partnership, we will deliver the very real technological and competitive benefits of further optimizing their processes through increased yield and throughput,” states de Villeméjane.

Headquartered in Franklin, MA, Cookson Electronics Equipment Group is a global leader in the electronics materials, ceramics, engineered products, and plastics industries.

Aegis is a global supplier of manufacturing productivity software for electronics assembly. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by introducing TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) technology, an entirely unique category of web-centric solutions. Using the power of TCM, Aegis software unites the factory office and the factory floor to create a complete enterprise solution. Aegis Engineering Tools expedite new product introductions by providing bill of materials and revision management; Collaborative Engineering Systems create a multi-user workgroup environment for these new product introduction functions; and Enterprise Productivity Solutions provide paperless documentation, product tracking, quality data collection and analysis, and extended enterprise visibility. These are provided via one seamless, collaborative system, providing centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation introduces iQ software, part of their Enterprise Productivity Solutions that provide visibility of manufacturing information on the factory floor and beyond. iQ brings dramatic improvements to product quality, along with reductions in labor, scrap, and rework costs by providing dynamic quality data collection and analysis via the web.

iQ collects defect information from the manufacturing process via browsers displaying interactive and graphical renderings of the product, or through automated data collectors to process equipment. It drives web reporting, quality analysis, and automates the re-routing and repair process. As iQ tracks quality, information is compared against quality standards established in its libraries and alerts are sent via e-mails/pages to the appropriate personnel when process is going out of control. Using iQ, customers have real-time visibility to the capability of their process to produce a quality product, and they are assisted in the steps that must be taken to correct quality issues.

iQ is built upon the multi-tier web architecture of the AEGIS FUSION system, ensuring stability even in massive deployments. It offers the customer a superior solution to generic quality systems through true integration to a single information server of product revisions, complete BOM data, and total process intelligence. Access to this information affords the customer better control, intuitive operation, and a truly process-intelligent solution.

Aegis is a global supplier of manufacturing productivity software for electronics assembly. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by introducing TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) technology, an entirely unique category of web-centric solutions. Using the power of TCM, Aegis software unites the factory office and the factory floor to create a complete enterprise solution. Aegis Engineering Tools expedite new product introductions by providing bill of materials and revision management; Collaborative Engineering Systems create a multi-user workgroup environment for these new product introduction functions; and Enterprise Productivity Solutions provide paperless documentation, product tracking, quality data collection and analysis, and extended enterprise visibility. These are provided via one seamless, collaborative system, providing centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management. Completing Aegis’ solution within the factory are integration partnerships with over 22 assembly, inspection, and process machine vendors.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation introduces iTrac software, a module of the FUSION Enterprise Productivity Solutions that provide web-based visibility of manufacturing information on the factory floor and beyond. iTrac web-centric software directs and tracks product flow, collects and recalls product genealogy data, and affords management visibility to factory and process performance.

iTrac by Aegis uses web browsers throughout the factory to direct and monitor flow of both batch and serialized product along routings designed using a graphical environment. Tools for creating flow logic provide for infinite process flexibility, as well as controlling routing based on variable events. iTrac utilizes rich product and revision data provided by the Aegis engineering tools to support both PCBs and nested assemblies, while also ensuring complete revision control. In addition to history, routing, and genealogy recall, iTrac also allows for parametric data to be input during the process, such as tuning settings, for recall later in the product lifecycle. The system also provides global web-based analysis and diagnostic capabilities to assist management in improving production performance.

Aegis is a global supplier of manufacturing productivity software for electronics assembly. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by introducing TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) technology, an entirely unique category of web-centric solutions. Using the power of TCM, Aegis software unites the factory office and the factory floor to create a complete enterprise solution. Aegis Engineering Tools expedite new product introductions by providing bill of materials and revision management; Collaborative Engineering Systems create a multi-user workgroup environment for these new product introduction functions; and Enterprise Productivity Solutions provide paperless documentation, product tracking, quality data collection and analysis, and extended enterprise visibility. These are provided via one seamless, collaborative system, providing centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management. Completing Aegis’ solution within the factory are integration partnerships with over 22 assembly, inspection, and process machine vendors.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – AEGIS Industrial Software announces that BAE SYSTEMS Avionics at Rochester, the global systems defense and aerospace company, will implement AEGIS web-centric manufacturing software across its electronics assembly facilities. BAE SYSTEMS has approved corporate-wide implementation of AEGIS software for improving manufacturing productivity and visibility. AEGIS manufacturing software expedites new product introduction and revision control/changes, creates a collaborative factory office environment, optimizes assembly machinery, and disseminates assembly information via the Web to management and the factory floor.

BAE SYSTEMS Avionics required a single system to streamline the myriad of tasks involved in transforming basic CAD and BOM data into useful manufacturing outputs, but also needed collaborative electronic control and web-based dissemination of the resultant information to the factory. They selected AEGIS following an evaluation, deployment, and testing period lasting more than a year in actual production conditions. The software’s ease of deployment, scalability, CAD and machine interfaces, and its combination of data preparation, product data management, and manufacturing execution within a single coherent system deliver a unique competitive edge for BAE SYSTEMS’ Rochester facilities.

“After a lengthy search for a software solution to a broad set of manufacturing problems, BAE SYSTEMS chose AEGIS for their unique web-centric software and their service reputation,” said Jason Sowerby of BAE SYSTEMS. “Within four days of their engineers’ deployment visit, we had a web-based paperless system running in our factory, bridging our machine programming and document generation system directly to the floor. Months later, our solution continued expanding, and AEGIS proved a real business partner in our effort to form a more productive factory. We look forward to the continuing deployment across the BAE SYSTEMS manufacturing community,” adds Sowerby.

“BAE SYSTEMS approached AEGIS with a well-defined vision of how an efficient electronics factory should operate, both in the engineering office, as well as on the floor.” said Jason Spera, AEGIS CEO. “They had an acute awareness of the control and efficiency problems of new product introduction, machine management, and the dissemination and tracking of information on the factory floor. Their vision of one truly integrated solution, using the Web and one database, to act as the platform for all of their needs, aligned well with AEGIS’ product design philosophy.”

AEGIS has set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. Aegis’ complete software solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system.

BAE SYSTEMS is the truly global systems, defense, and aerospace company, with more than 100,000 employees and annual sales of around £12 billion ($17 billion). The company offers a global capability in air, land, sea, and space with a world-class prime contracting ability supported by a range of key skills. BAE SYSTEMS designs and manufactures civil and military aircraft, surface ships, submarines, space systems, radar, avionics, communications, electronics, guided weapon systems, and a range of other defense products.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – AEGIS Industrial Software announces that BAE SYSTEMS Avionics at Rochester, the global systems defense and aerospace company, will implement AEGIS web-centric manufacturing software across its electronics assembly facilities. BAE SYSTEMS has approved corporate-wide implementation of AEGIS software for improving manufacturing productivity and visibility. AEGIS manufacturing software expedites new product introduction and revision control/changes, creates a collaborative factory office environment, optimizes assembly machinery, and disseminates assembly information via the Web to management and the factory floor.

BAE SYSTEMS Avionics required a single system to streamline the myriad of tasks involved in transforming basic CAD and BOM data into useful manufacturing outputs, but also needed collaborative electronic control and web-based dissemination of the resultant information to the factory. They selected AEGIS following an evaluation, deployment, and testing period lasting more than a year in actual production conditions. The software’s ease of deployment, scalability, CAD and machine interfaces, and its combination of data preparation, product data management, and manufacturing execution within a single coherent system deliver a unique competitive edge for BAE SYSTEMS’ Rochester facilities.

“After a lengthy search for a software solution to a broad set of manufacturing problems, BAE SYSTEMS chose AEGIS for their unique web-centric software and their service reputation,” said Jason Sowerby of BAE SYSTEMS. “Within four days of their engineers’ deployment visit, we had a web-based paperless system running in our factory, bridging our machine programming and document generation system directly to the floor. Months later, our solution continued expanding, and AEGIS proved a real business partner in our effort to form a more productive factory. We look forward to the continuing deployment across the BAE SYSTEMS manufacturing community,” adds Sowerby.

“BAE SYSTEMS approached AEGIS with a well-defined vision of how an efficient electronics factory should operate, both in the engineering office, as well as on the floor.” said Jason Spera, AEGIS CEO. “They had an acute awareness of the control and efficiency problems of new product introduction, machine management, and the dissemination and tracking of information on the factory floor. Their vision of one truly integrated solution, using the Web and one database, to act as the platform for all of their needs, aligned well with AEGIS’ product design philosophy.”

AEGIS has set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. Aegis’ complete software solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system.

BAE SYSTEMS is the truly global systems, defense, and aerospace company, with more than 100,000 employees and annual sales of around £12 billion ($17 billion). The company offers a global capability in air, land, sea, and space with a world-class prime contracting ability supported by a range of key skills. BAE SYSTEMS designs and manufactures civil and military aircraft, surface ships, submarines, space systems, radar, avionics, communications, electronics, guided weapon systems, and a range of other defense products.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

FRANKLIN, MA – The Alliance announced that it has named Aegis Industrial Software Corporation as a preferred software provider to the strategic partnership formed by Speedline Technologies and Assembléon in November 2001.

Aegis will bring its expertise in advanced software solutions for total line control and enterprise management to The Alliance customers. As a result, the Alliance will provide a total manufacturing solution that leverages the full potential of equipment and processes. Specifically, the technology, provided by Aegis, will enable process control, performance evaluation and remote diagnostics and control.

“Our decision to name Aegis as a preferred software provider was obvious, as they are experienced in developing and deploying software solutions for factory automation applications,” stated Pierre de Villemejane, president of Speedline Technologies, and Cor Scholten, Assembléon CEO. “Aegis will further enable The Alliance to meet its goal of implementing customized lines designed to optimize our customers processes while increasing yield and throughput with a positive impact on bottom-line financials.”

Off-the-shelf software solutions from Aegis will be immediately available to The Alliance customers. In addition, The Alliance and Aegis will work together to develop proprietary software that can be customized to meet specific customer requirements.

About The Alliance
The Alliance is a long-term sales, marketing and service partnership formed by Speedline Technologies and Assembléon in November 2001 that brings a new set of integrated line offerings to the electronics assembly market. The Alliance combines the expertise and resources of these organizations to provide SMT manufacturers with the very best in integrated line solutions in the U.S. and around the globe.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, developer of CircuitCAM FUSION TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, announces an OEM reseller agreement with Photon Dynamics, Inc., a global supplier of integrated yield management solutions for the display, electronics, and glass markets. Previously, Aegis was an OEM reseller partner with CR Technology, Inc., which Photon Dynamics acquired in 1999, and most recently with, Intelligent Reasoning Systems, Inc., also acquired by Photon Dynamics in 2001.

Under this new agreement, Photon Dynamics will offer CircuitCAM software for rapidly converting CAD and Gerber data into complete machine programs for all Photon Dynamics automated optical inspection (AOI) and automated optical & X-ray inspection (AOXI) systems.

Photon Dynamics' customer, Jim Roche, manager of manufacturing engineering at MC Assembly says, "Our factory is automated with Aegis technology, and by using CircuitCAM as our machine programming gateway for our Photon Dynamics' AOI system, SV-4000, we are able to generate complete data downloads quickly and efficiently with the elimination of manual processes often required with other computer integrated manufacturing. We believe that the powerful combination of Aegis and Photon Dynamics will continue to provide our factory with increased quality and efficiency."

Commenting further, Photon Dynamics' president of the Electronics Division, Bruce P. Delmore, stated, “The OEM reseller agreement with Aegis further supports our goal of providing integrated yield management solutions for our customers. Integrating Aegis’ software with our systems will simplify setup, enhance system flexibility, and aid in the importation of data for auto-training – reducing the time it takes customers to reach their maximum yield with our solutions.” Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis, says, “We are pleased to continue our reseller agreement with Photon Dynamics, an innovative and global supplier of integrated yield management solutions for AOI and AOXI equipment. The synergy between our two companies allows us to provide our joint customers with the solutions that they demand and the rapid delivery that they deserve.”

Aegis is a global supplier of manufacturing productivity software for electronics assembly. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by introducing TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) technology, an entirely unique category of web-centric solutions. Using the power of TCM, Aegis software unites the factory office and the factory floor to create a complete enterprise solution. Aegis Engineering Tools provide bill of materials and revision management; Collaborative Engineering Systems create a multi-user collaborative workgroup environment to expedite new product introduction; and Enterprise Productivity Solutions provide entire enterprise solutions, including paperless documentation, product tracking, quality data collection and analysis, and extended enterprise visibility. These are provided via one seamless, collaborative system, providing centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software, developer of the popular CircuitCAM computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) software, announces an OEM agreement with Christopher Associates, Inc., regarding their NSpec system, an AOI desktop system that automatically scans electronics assemblies for defects. Under this agreement, CircuitCAM will be the only CIM product that Christopher will recommend to its customers for CAD, Gerber, and ASCII/Centroid data conversion for its NSpec system to allow total integration into a CIM environment.

AEGIS develops CIM software for the electronics industry, capable of optimizing every stage of PCB assembly. AEGIS’ product suite automates the conversion of CAD and BOM data into process documentation, machine programs, and a variety of other outputs under enterprise-wide revision control. CircuitCAM modules represent state-of-the-art CIM technology built completely on Microsoft development platforms and utilizing modern Windows software technologies such as OLE, video, audio, Internet support, and fully open data architectures.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, developer of CircuitCAM FUSION TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, announces an OEM agreement with EKRA America, a leading worldwide supplier of surface mount stencil printing systems. Under this agreement, EKRA will offer CircuitCAM CIM software for rapidly converting CAD and Gerber data into printer programs complete with safe under-board tooling programs.

"EKRA is very excited about forming a strategic alliance with AEGIS”, says Steve Hall, General Manager of EKRA America. “By providing our customers with CircuitCAM CIM software, we give them the ability to program our machines quickly and easily from CAD or Gerber data. We feel that this relationship fits perfectly with our goal of integrating ‘Useful Technology,’ offering a real benefit to our customer's process."

Jason Spera, CEO of AEGIS, says, “AEGIS is pleased to be supplying technology to EKRA, and shares the EKRA commitment to solutions targeted precisely to our customers’ needs. Creating printer programs from basic design data provides customers a significant speed advantage in new product introductions and engineering changes.”

Headquartered in Marlborough, MA, EKRA America provides stencil printing solutions for the SMT, Hybrid, Semiconductor Packaging, and Solar industries in the Americas. Efficiency, ease-of-use, and reliability are characteristics designed into every EKRA product.

AEGIS is a global supplier of information processing and management software for manufacturers. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. CircuitCAM FUSION is the first joining of traditional CAD/CAM functions, web-centric product data management, and real-time, web-centric manufacturing execution technology into a single software system.

AEGIS’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system. AEGIS systems in the enterprise bring centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software, developer of FUSION TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, announces an OEM agreement with MIMOT, an international manufacturer of intelligent and flexible automatic SMD placement systems. Under this agreement, MIMOT will offer CircuitCAM to its customers for CAD, Gerber, and ASCII/Centroid data conversion for their Advantage series of pick and place systems and their Flexshooter chip shooter system.

Joerg Widmer, U.S. and Canada Sales Manager at MIMOT said, “Through our partnership with Aegis, our customers will use CircuitCAM as the answer to their data preparation needs. CircuitCAM programs our pick and place machine in a matter of minutes. Ease of use and flexibility are the requirements that our customers demand from a CIM system today.”

Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis, says, “Aegis is excited that MIMOT has chosen CircuitCAM as their preferred solution to assist them in their goal of increasing U.S. market share. There is a great synergy with the two companies sharing the same level of customer support dedication.”

Aegis is a global supplier of information processing and management software for manufacturers. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. CircuitCAM FUSION is the first joining of traditional CAD/CAM functions, web-centric product data management, and real-time, web-centric manufacturing execution technology into a single software system.

Aegis’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system. Aegis systems in the enterprise bring centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, developer of CircuitCAM FUSION TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, announces an OEM agreement with Juki Automation Systems, a leading worldwide supplier of high-quality, automated assembly equipment for surface mount applications. Under this agreement, Juki will offer CircuitCAM CIM software for CAD, Gerber, and ASCII/Centroid data conversion as well as full CIM integration into Juki’s HLC programming and optimization software.

Gary Burroughs, President of Juki Automation Systems said, "We are very excited about partnering with Aegis. The addition of CircuitCAM software into our SMT product line will provide our customers with a truly integrated placement system. Users will have a system that requires minimal downtime for programming and changeover, and will always be available for production, regardless of the product mix. With CircuitCAM, even contract assemblers working with numerous customers and varying CAD/BOM data will find machine programming easy to accomplish.”

Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis, says, “We see this agreement as a part of our commitment to speeding data preparation and product introduction for our customers. Aegis is pleased to be partnering with Juki in order to create surface mount assembly systems that are integrated seamlessly into a factory’s information management backbone.”

Aegis is a global supplier of information processing and management software for manufacturers. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. CircuitCAM FUSION is the first joining of traditional CAD/CAM functions, web-centric product data management, and real-time, web-centric manufacturing execution technology into a single software system.

Aegis’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system. Aegis systems in the enterprise bring centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation, developer of the CircuitCAM FUSION CIM software system, announces a technology integration agreement with Siemens Dematic Electronic Assembly Systems, Inc.

Aegis CAD data importers are now embedded within the new Siemens SIPLACE Pro machine management and programming software. This technology integration provides automatic placement program generation for SIPLACE customers via the robust and proven CAD interpreters used across all Aegis products. The state-of-the-art design platform of both SIPLACE Pro and Aegis software enabled this seamless integration. SIPLACE Pro users benefit from a single software interface, rather than separate applications, which has been the tradition with third-party CIM solutions.

Seamless software integration for SMT manufacturing has been Siemens' approach for the past several years. Robert Huber, Manager Global Software Product Management, Siemens Dematic EAS said, "Collaboration with partners such as Aegis, who is a market leader, confirms our continuing effort for open systems on the factory floor. Our customers ultimately receive the benefit since they get best-in-class components from the market leaders that are integrated transparently into their manufacturing software."

Chris Woodward, Engineering Manager, Siemens Dematic EAS, states, "Both companies have the same philosophy of software component interoperability which resulted in a trivial integration effort." Siemens is looking forward to expand the relationship and enhance the product offerings for its customer.

This agreement represents a significant advance in CAD/CIM integration into a machine programming platform. Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis said, “Both companies uniquely engineer their software at the forefront of Windows technology. This enables us to provide an unprecedented level of integration, affording customers truly seamless machine programming. As a result, Aegis looks forward to increased customer expectations of CIM software, and the expansion of this technique into other applications.”

Aegis is a global supplier of information processing and management software for manufacturers. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. CircuitCAM FUSION is the first joining of traditional CAD/CAM functions, web-centric product data management, and real-time, web-centric manufacturing execution technology into a single software system. Aegis’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation announces the opening of new, larger headquarters in Philadelphia. The custom-configured 20,000-square-foot facility serves as the worldwide center for product development, applications engineering, marketing, sales, and customer support. In addition, it accommodates three simultaneous training sessions and/or demonstration sessions in large, multimedia centers for up to 32 customers.

Jason Spera, CEO of Aegis said of the opening, “The exciting manufacturing information advancement of CircuitCAM FUSION drove this expansion. Our operations can now scale to match the increasing size and requirements of our customer base. Aegis built this facility to ensure a continuance of our world-class engineering and customer service reputation.”

Aegis is a global supplier of information processing and management software for manufacturers. The company set the standard for enterprise-level manufacturing information management by creating TransCollaborative Manufacturing (TCM) software, an entirely unique category of software. CircuitCAM FUSION is the first joining of traditional CAD/CAM functions, web-centric product data management, and real-time, web-centric manufacturing execution technology into a single software system.

Aegis’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system. Aegis systems in the enterprise bring centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Aegis Industrial Software Corporation announces the release of its CheckPoint B.O.M. (Bill Of Materials) Manager for processing data at the front end of the printed circuit board (PCB) assembly process. CheckPoint imports, parses, analyzes, and archives BOMs and approved vendor lists under electronic revision control. The software eliminates the arduous tasks of manually cleaning, and controlling BOMs, processes that
virtually halt new product introduction until completed.

CheckPoint imports customer BOM data from a variety of sources, such as collimated ASCII files, CIM project files, Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets, and ODBC databases. The software operates on Access® or SQL Server® to provide enterprise-wide PCB information control.

CheckPoint assists contractors in developing a single internal part number database correlated against thousands of customer part number databases. Once received, CheckPoint maps customer part numbers to the assembler’s equivalent numbers using intelligent description field matching. CheckPoint provides the operator with a list of possible matches based on content of the description fields. Possible matches are ranked by degree of probability, and then operators can select and confirm the correct component. The task of bringing customer part numbers into the factory is highly efficient and reliable.

CheckPoint also offers an array of useful reports for least-cost analysis, BOM version comparisons, BOM listing, CAD/BOM analysis, vendor lists, and manufacturer lists.

CheckPoint becomes an especially powerful tool when combined with computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) software, providing document control and BOM/CAD comparisons.

AEGIS’ complete CircuitCAM / CheckPoint / FUSION solution offers scalable CAD/CAM documentation and machine programming, BOM and revision control, browser-based approval processes, browser-based paperless documentation and quality management, customer and supplier integration, and more. These benefits are provided via one seamless, collaborative system. AEGIS systems in the enterprise bring centralized information, rapid and controlled product introductions and changes, and superior information visibility and management.

For additional information contact:
Shaun Black, Director of Marketing
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
Email: sblack@aiscorp.com
Phone: 215.773.3571 Ext. 1102