CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

15 March 2006

Events News

Italian Political Representatives and Leading Industry Experts Join Microsoft at Manufacturing Innovation Road Show

Microsoft announced details of the Italian Manufacturing Innovation Road Show, the second in a series of two-day events taking place throughout Europe. The Italian event will take place on 29 and 30 March 2006 at the Centro Congressi MilanoFiori.

The Manufacturing Innovation Road Show, which is hosted by Microsoft and supported by 17 leading manufacturing companies, will focus on technology innovation in the manufacturing industry and how this can be used to help reduce costs, increase competition and optimise business processes.

The Milan event is aimed at corporate decision makers, visionaries, strategy leaders and line-of-business executives and will look at different market segments of the manufacturing industry including: automotive, consumer packaged goods, discrete manufacturing, fashion, industrial equipment, pharmaceuticals and the process industry. A highlight of the event will be the real-life experiences presented by manufacturers, including the famous Italian shoemaker, GEOX.

The first day will be opened by senior executives from Microsoft and Bruno Tabacci, president of the Parliamentary Commission for Production, Commerce and Tourism, who will present their views on innovation in the manufacturing sector. Presentations from representatives of leading manufacturing consultancies and technology providers will follow, covering the topics below:

•  Product design

•  Real-time interoperability for manufacturing intelligence

•  Innovation and differentiation in the value chain

•  Increasing corporate value through business processes

The first day will conclude with a roundtable moderated by leading manufacturing industry expert, professor Giancarlo Capitani, CEO of NetConsulting. It will feature executives from manufacturing technology providers as well as representatives from EU agencies and associations, such as Enrico Letta, secretary general of AREL (Research and Legislation Agency) and Matteo Colaninno, national president of Young Entrepreneurs of Confindustria (the Italian manufacturing industries association).

Further highlights of the Italian Manufacturing Innovation Road Show include parallel sessions held by Microsoft partners addressing four key areas of the manufacturing industry:

•  New product development -- how to use new and innovative technology to make processes in the manufacturing industry more efficient
•  Operations -- how to manage the production process in key manufacturing sectors such as aerospace, CPG and pharmaceuticals, while maintaining quality, agility and compliance
•  Supply chain -- promoting supply chain performance and dynamics, key factors to control demand, the use of RFID technology
•  Sales and customer service -- developing communications channels, such as internet and call centers as ideal instruments to maintain customer loyalty

The event is supported by the following companies: Accenture, Aive Group, Brain Force, Cortis Lentini, Dassault Systemes, Hewlett-Packard Co, Iconics Inc, Wonderware, Kelyan, Meridio, MHT, The OPC Foundation, OSIsoft Inc, Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D), Softwork, Tecno Team and TxT e-solutions SpA.

Lorenzo Pengo, managing director Manufacturing Industries, Microsoft Europe Middle East Africa, said, "Innovation in technology is a key driver in today's manufacturing industry and Microsoft's objective is to promote and facilitate communications among all industries leaders and partners to ensure that best practices and best solutions are continuously researched. This event is an example of Microsoft and its partners' ecosystem in delivering innovation in the manufacturing industries."

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With more than 126,000 people in 48 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. Its home page is http://www.accenture.com .

About Aive Group

Aive Business Solutions assists Companies in the business of manufacturing, services and distribution to design and implement ERP systems, Business Intelligence and e-business solutions that optimize business processes and leverage corporate knowledge leading to competitive advantage. AiveBS provides software solutions, business process analysis and system design, technical and functional expertise, implementation, training and support services, both locally and internationally.

Aive Business Solutions has significant experience in several Vertical Markets, like: Automotive, Fashion, Food, Distribution, Engineering, Logistics.

About Brain Force

Brain Force Software is a company that provides infrastructure solutions, services, business solutions, industry-specific applications and outsourcing.

Its infrastructure solutions provide a highly efficient IT management and optimize the operation of customer's owned IT / telecommunication networks -- including security measures. It supports companies with premium services for business critical IT systems. Benefit from the know how of individual or several IT experts. Its business solutions provide optimum IT support for your business processes across industries and thus provide crucial competitive advantages. Brain Force's industry specific applications for financial services providers and production companies supporting the business processes in an optimal way and providing true added value. The outsourcing offer comprises systems such as user helpdesk and application management of business critical systems.

About Cortis Lentini

Cortis Lentini has been identified as a reference management software supplier for the Italian SMB environment. Founded by two system analysts, the organization looks after planning and implementation methodologies of software solutions; therefore the ISO9001 certification -- obtained in October 1994 and transformed in Vision2000 in October 2003 -- substantially certifies procedures already into action and makes them homogeneous.

Dassault Systemes

The Dassault Systemes group brings value to more than 80,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systemes develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3D vision of the entire life cycle of products from conception to maintenance. Our offering includes integrated PLM solutions for product development (CATIA®, DELMIA®, ENOVIA®, SMARTEAM®), mainstream 3D design tools (SolidWorks®), and 3D components (Spatial/ACIS®). For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com .

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended Oct. 31, 2005, HP revenue totaled US$86.7 billion.

HP's solutions for the automotive industry are focused on the integration and collaboration of four key areas of the automotive supply chain environment: manufacturing and extended supply chain; product development -- including design, PLM and collaboration; and dealer management and CRM.

HP's technology, products and services range from the provision of shop floor PCs and handhelds through to integrated global enterprise platforms that can include business and application consulting, end-to-end implementation and full multi-vendor support. In addition, HP delivers superior partnering or outsourcing of non-core activities in all forms, from out tasking to direct business process outsourcing.

More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com .

About Iconics

ICONICS is a leader of OPC, Web-enabled, HMI/SCADA and Manufacturing Intelligence software for all Microsoft Windows operating systems. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner of the Year for Technology and Innovation within Business Intelligence, ICONICS designs its solutions from the ground up to take maximum advantage of Microsoft .NET technology, offering an unprecedented level of performance and ease of use. ICONICS' solutions provide real-time manufacturing intelligence from the production floor to the boardroom, turning data into your competitive advantage. ICONICS' out-of-the-box, OPC-To-The-Core solutions can improve productivity, reduce integration and operating costs, and optimize your asset utilization. The BizViz Manufacturing Intelligence suite enables manufacturers to overcome business challenges with personalized role-based dashboards, configurable key performance indicators, on-demand reporting and real-time alert notification. With more than 250,000 installations worldwide and servicing 70 percent of Fortune 500 manufacturers, ICONICS' award-winning software products are being used in a wide variety of applications across many industries. For more information, or to get a free development CD, please visit http://www.iconics.com .

About Kelyan Franco Bernabe Group

Kelyan plans and realizes integrated IT solutions for businesses. It offers services from the development ERP management applications to Business Intelligence to the realization of Networking and Security architectures, to e-business solutions to the planning and implementation of Enterprise Iformation Portal for the management of corporate applications on the company's intranet, to Enterprise Application Integration for the management integration of legacy systems of corporate IT. Clients include Enel, Sony, Conad, Tiscali and Synudine.

About Meridio

Meridio is a worldwide provider of enterprise Document and Records Management software, engineered for Microsoft .NET platforms. Meridio's mission is to enable senior executives to meet their goals of regulatory compliance, business efficiency and profitability through information superiority. With massive scalability, exceptional usability, and proven deployment success, Meridio's secure Document and Records Management is an essential component of compliance infrastructure.

About MHT

The MHT project was born in 1991 in Verona, Italy, and then extended in 1995 with the creation of MHT Optic Research in Swiss (Zurich). It's an advanced research project in the optic's field, carried out by a vanguard team of technicians and engineers, with the goal to develop new technologies to be applied on the electro-medical field. The big financial commitment leaded to a first and encouraging result in 1998, with the spectrophotometer "SpectroShade", a state of the art idea and instrument, immediately patented. After a first positive market experience in the dental sector, that recently achieved an acknowledgement from the Colgate -- Palmolive corporation, in 2000 started an ambitious cooperation in dermatological studies with the Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (INT), to obtain an instrument for the early melanoma diagnosis.

The goals reached in this cooperation were excellent, and INT presented those results towards the academic and scientific world in the international meeting on 20 June 2003. Year after year this cooperation lead to even better results, as our unique instrument give evidence.

Nowadays each MHT instrument is the state of the art in spectrophotometry applied to medical diagnosis. MHT Optic Research continuously develop and studies new instrument and search for new fields of application.

About The OPC Foundation

The OPC Foundation is a non-profit international standards organization dedicated to providing open standards for interoperability in industrial automation. The OPC Foundation has its headquarter in the USA and affiliate organizations in Europe, Japan and China. The OPC Foundation creates specifications are open and interoperable interface standards that leverage the functionality and technology of the Microsoft operating systems and architecture and also leverage the technology of XML and Web services (as the key to interoperability between factory floor and the enterprise). The OPC Foundation's specifications have been created through a collaboration of leading worldwide automation and hardware software supplier's cooperating together to solve critical end-user interoperability problems. For more information, refer to the OPC Foundation web site at http://www.opcfoundation.org .

About OSIsoft

OSIsoft delivers performance management software to the world's leading process manufacturing, life sciences, and utility companies -- anywhere real-time operational metrics fuel performance. With more than 10,000 installations worldwide, OSIsoft's real-time data platform crosses IT and process boundaries to incorporate and display operational information. Providing comprehensive visibility into operations, the OSIsoft platform unlocks the potential for timely analysis and the ability to make critical, informed and profitable decisions.

Founded in 1980, OSIsoft, Inc. is headquartered in San Leandro, Calif., with operations worldwide and is privately-held. http://www.osisoft.com .

About Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D)

The Siemens Automation and Drives Group (A&D), Nuremberg, Germany, is the leading manufacturer in this field worldwide. Products supplied by A&D include standard products for the manufacturing and process industries and for the electrical installation industry as well as system solutions, for example for machine tools, and solutions for whole industries such as the automation of entire automobile factories or chemical plants. Supplementing this range of products and services, A&D also offers software for linking production and management (horizontal and vertical IT integration) and for optimizing production processes. A&D employs 60,800 people worldwide and in fiscal year 2005 (to September 30) earned a group profit of euro 1,210 million on sales of euro 9,844 million and orders of euro 10,190 million. http://www.siemens.com/automation . Within A&D's product range, SIMATIC IT is the software platform for managing integration of shop floor with the business level.

About Softwork

Softwork is global provider and distributor of active and passive RFID solutions. Identification technology that is affirming itself on the world market for its versatility, easy to use and security. Softwork invests in the research and development of new solutions and in the continuous qualification of its personnel.

About TecnoTeam

TecnoTeam operates in the national market of PC, accessories, digital photocopiers distribution. It provides accountancy and warehouse management software for every kind of needs. It also has a technical lab specialized in solving problems with hardware and software commercial products. TecnoTeam continuously research new technologies and new standards that can bring a better and more efficient business.

About TxT e-solutions

TXT e-solutions leads the European market in solutions - software packages, services and consulting -- for demand & supply chain management and for content management.

TXT is highly specialized for the main industrial and retail markets. Amongst these: Fashion, Food&Beverage, CPG, Retail, Discrete Manufacturing, Aerospace&Defence, Telco. It has a staff of over 500 professionals. It is based in Milan and has offices in Italy, France, Germany, UK and Spain. http://www.txtgroup.com .

About Wonderware

Wonderware, business unit of Invensys Systems, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of industrial automation and information software. Founded in 1987, Wonderware pioneered the use of the Microsoft Windows operating system in HMI automation software for manufacturing operation systems. Wonderware software powers intelligent plant decisions in real time. The hallmark of the ArchestrA architecture is: "Every system in your plant, working in concert."

Based in Lake Forest, Calif., the Wonderware has regional sales and development offices throughout the North American, European, Latin American and Asia-Pacific regions to provide support to its network of more than 160 distributor offices. Wonderware has sold in over 100,000 plant sites worldwide, which is about 30 percent of the world's 335,000 plants with 20 or more employees. For more information, visit http://www.wonderware.com .

About Microsoft in Manufacturing

Microsoft, in conjunction with its team of industry leaders, delivers enterprise solutions to a range of manufacturers including those in vertical industries such as automotive, chemical, consumer packaged goods, high technology, and oil and gas. These industry-specific solutions provide a flexible, scalable and reliable platform that helps to enable businesses to be more agile and connected. As a result, manufacturers can shorten product development cycles, integrate operations with partners and suppliers, acquire and share intelligence in real time, and more easily communicate with customers. More information about Microsoft in manufacturing can be found online at http://www.microsoft.com/manufacturing .

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