Warsaw, Poland April 9, 2001 IFS recently announced that IFS and PipeChain have formed a new worldwide partnership to integrate PipeChain's Supply Chain Execution (SCE) software with IFS' component-based business applications. The partnership targets repetitive manufacturing industries such as electronics and automotive that require automated, highly repetitive supply chain solutions. IFS customers now have the full range of Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) products to choose from integrating both to their high- and low-volume customers and suppliers.
PipeChain's advanced VMI solutions are used for the high-volume partners and IFS portal-based VMI solutions are used for the low-volume partners. IFS will package and sell PipeChain's SCE and VMI solutions as fully integrated components along with IFS Applications. IFS president and CEO Bengt Nilsson said, PipeChain is an ideal partner for IFS for a number of reasons. First, our technologies are very compatible. Like IFS, PipeChain offers integration with any data source from the most advanced marketplaces to point solutions. Second, we are both targeting the same manufacturing industry segments. Next, one of our key goals is to help our customers reduce the time and cost for administrating purchases, reducing cycle times and increasing volume with a few preferred suppliers to get better pricing. To accomplish this, we decided to integrate PipeChain's products the best SCE and VMI capabilities available today. When using these functions, combined with our business applications and portal technology which make real-time data quickly and readily available we believe our customers will experience a rapid and impressive ROI.
PipeChain President Per Grettve commented, Having developed the most advanced B2B supply chain system by using the concept of Network Managed Supply (NMS), PipeChain was looking for the right infrastructure/business applications partner. The network-centric NMS concept means that our clients' entire supply chains upstream and downstream can be optimized' in the truest sense such that all members can collaborate as one and mutually reap the benefits of a fully automated supply process. With IFS having one of the only solutions that offers dynamic, real-time access to data through easy-to-configure personal and collaboration portals, it is easy to realize why they are a very good partner for us. We believe this partnership will significantly increase the demand for our products.
