A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions and CombineNet Join Forces To Deliver Advanced Sourcing Solutions

Advanced solutions will enable customers to easily evaluate complex sourcing criteria while providing suppliers with flexibility to offer creative options

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (November 8, 2004) – CombineNet, the leading provider of Web-based optimization tools and capabilities will team-up with A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions, a leading provider of strategic sourcing services and technologies, to provide Advanced Solutions for strategic sourcing, procurement and supply chain problems for Global 1000 companies. The solutions are integrated with the Teamcenter® product lifecycle management (PLM) portfolio from PLM industry leader UGS.

“Combinatorial optimization, spend category expertise and supplier collaboration technologies provide breakthrough benefits to sourcing,” says Joseph Raudabaugh, President of A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions. “Adding CombineNet's analytics to our eBreviate solutions and services and then extending it deeply into supplier collaboration with UGS's Teamcenter platform will enable customers to efficiently identify and evaluate supplier options and the benefits from improved specification management. This builds a major bridge towards enabling the promise of 'design-to-source' and brings design, engineering and purchasing together through improved analytics.”

Rev, CombineNet's core technology, is changing the way leading companies purchase strategic goods and services in a wide variety of categories, including raw materials, packaging, transportation and marketing. The highly configurable, web-based application can be quickly deployed to create, analyze and evaluate a large number of supplier-nominated options allowing both buyers and sellers to identify more effective supply alternatives.

Based on the world's most advanced optimization models, REV works seamlessly with – and dramatically increases the power and usefulness of – such existing technology investments as ERP and eSourcing. The synergies between these technologies enable rapid visibility and optimization of these options.

“We have been working with a number of customers getting great results. Rev changes the game in terms of analytical power and speed,” says Tony Bonidy, President and CEO of CombineNet. “As product lines have proliferated so have supplier specifications and complexity. Bringing insight into the cost of complexity and supplier economics enables fundamental changes in the choices customers are making. Teaming with A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions will enable Rev to be deployed against thousands of spend categories across hundreds of customers. Their expertise and reach with our analytic engine will be defining. The promise of extensions into design to source with the A.T. Kearney-UGS team already has the attention of our largest customers.”

About CombineNet
CombineNet is the world's leading provider of cost and profit software for the Global 1000.

Rev, CombineNet's premier product, is a “profit accelerator,” built around the maxim that the fastest way to increase profit is to decrease costs, especially in the most complicated – and potentially highest return – areas of the enterprise. Rev is a powerful web-based tool that is quickly applied to these high-return areas. Based on the world's most advanced optimization models, Rev works seamlessly with – and dramatically increases the power and usefulness of – such existing technology investments as ERP and e-Sourcing. Procter & Gamble, SIEMENS, USPS, and many other leading companies use Rev to solve their most complex mission-critical problems in the areas of strategic sourcing, profit maximization, energy, telecommunications, and marketing spend. For more information, contact CombineNet at (412) 471-8200 (Pittsburgh) or +49 30 88 706 4010 (Berlin), or visit www.combinenet.com.

About A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions
A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions provides comprehensive strategic procurement services to clients with needs that range from tactical cost savings to outsourced strategic sourcing services to complete procurement transformation. A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions augments the strategic sourcing expertise of A.T. Kearney (www.atkearney.com), one of the world's largest management consulting firms. With a global presence that includes more than 60 offices in 37 countries, spanning major and emerging markets, A.T. Kearney provides strategic, operational, organizational and technology consulting and executive search services to the world's leading companies.

About UGS
UGS is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with more than 3.1 million licensed seats and 42,000 clients worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, the company promotes openness and standardization and works collaboratively with its clients in creating enterprise solutions enabling them to transform their process of innovation and thus begin to capture the value of PLM. For more information on UGS products and services, visit www.ugs.com.

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