Released on = July 17, 2006, 5:40 am

Press Release Author = John Busa

Industry = Software

Press Release Summary = aPriori Strategic Value Assessment Demonstrates Real-Time
Costs

Press Release Body = "The objective of the aPriori Strategic Value Assessment (aSVA)
is to confirm the financial and strategic value that aPriori can brings to customers
in a very short timeframe, approximately four weeks, "according to Frank Azzolino,
president of aPriori Technologies.

Specifically, the aSVA validates:

 aPriori works in our customers business environment:
­ Verifying that the relevant production facilities and manufacturing processes can
be modeled
­ Confirming that predictive and accurate cost assessments can be created for our
customers' products
­ Certifying that customers can use aPriori in their everyday tasks to accomplish
product cost reductions quickly and easily

 aPriori helps customers find ways to lower product costs by demonstrating:
­ It can provide real-time visibility to cost information at all stages in the
product development and delivery process.
­ It provides fast and accurate product cost estimates that can be used as daily
design, manufacturing, and sourcing decisions are being made.

Customers have the opportunity to improve their approach to product cost management
by incorporating real-time product cost information into all product development and
delivery activities.

During the aSVA, aPriori provides the aPriori Cost Management software platform
on-site to facilitate making real-time product cost assessments; design changes in
the MCAD system, as well as understanding the product cost implications of various
sourcing decisions, manufacturing process decisions, and material choices. The
activity allows customer to experience how aPriori drives product cost reductions.
Sources of cost reduction may come from:

 Better cost information during the product design process suggesting
different design alternatives
 Different materials decisions based on real-time cost information
 Planning/routing/manufacturing decisions based on knowing the cost
consequences of different alternatives
 Should-cost analyses available earlier in the product development cycle
 More efficient make/buy decisions based on fact based product cost estimates


The customers choose a number of representative manufactured products to validate
the cost saving potential of the aPriori system. They model the production
facilities; those facilities may represent internal production facilities or the
facilities of suppliers or vendors. The goal of the aSVA activity is to generate
accurate product costs for the representative products and to explore realistic
product cost reduction scenarios.

During the aSVA, aPriori provides a 4-day on-site session that includes solution
education, orientation of the application, and hands-on use. The training is for
representatives of all user communities who impact and manage product costs (such as
representatives from Sourcing/Procurement, Accounting, Manufacturing, Design
Engineering and Management.)

The aSVA will conclude with a final report that summarizes the project and presents
a viable business case for the long term adoption of the aPriori Cost Management
software platform at our customers. This business case is based on product cost
reductions that determine the ROI of the aSVA activity and as well as the projected
ROI of long term adoption.


An aSVA takes approximately four weeks to complete and consists of five key
activities:
1) Preparing technical environment
2) Gathering data
3) Building the production facility models
4) Using the aPriori Cost Management System at the customer's site to validate the
accuracy of product cost estimates and to explore cost reduction opportunities
5) Delivering the business case validating the applicability of the aPriori cost
management system as well as short and long term ROI opportunity

To learn more about this important program go to:
http://www.apriori.com/services/asva.html.

"aPriori has customers in a variety of industries including High Technology,
Industrial Equipment, Automotive, and Heavy Machinery. Recent aPriori customers
include John Deere, Panasonic, Thomas & Betts, JLG, Wrobel Engineering, and Dana
Corporation."




Web Site = http://www.aPriori.com

Contact Details = aPriori
www.aPriori.com
John Busa
jbusa@apriori.com
978-371-2006