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Leading Global Specialty Coffee Roaster and
Retailer to Deploy CDC Software’s CDC Factory
Manufacturing Operations Management Solution
CDC Software
June 10, 2008
CDC Factory to be Implemented at Plants in North America
and Europe as Part of the Company’s Strategy to Increase
Capacity, Lower Costs, and Address Rising Commodity
Prices and Increased Competition
Atlanta, GA & Hong Kong, China -- CDC Software, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation
(NASDAQ:CHINA) and a provider of industry-specific
enterprise software applications and business services,
announced today that one of the world’s leading
specialty coffee roasters and retailers plans to
implement CDC Factory to help increase capacity, reduce
costs, improve operational efficiency, expand its
continuous improvement programs, and provide a
standardized platform to unify processes, information
and performance metrics across its plants. This win is
the latest in several new customers who are implementing
CDC Factory since its launch one year ago.
CDC Factory helps enterprises achieve breakthrough
performance without additional investments in equipment,
plant or workers. CDC Factory helps change human
behavior on the plant floor by empowering employees to
make real-time decisions. Faced with the significant
rise in commodity prices in the food industry and
increased competition, this global processor and
retailer of specialty coffee selected CDC Factory to
help offset some of these challenges. The coffee company
also cited CDC Factory’s ease of use and the ability to
use the solution as a platform for management change.
CDC Factory is a manufacturing operations management
solution specifically designed for the food and beverage
and consumer products industries. The system integrates
real time performance management, operations, quality,
business analytics with best practices in lean
manufacturing, OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) and
continuous improvement.
The coffee company was already using an OEE system that
it felt did not provide sufficient real-time data and
did not leverage the valuable human capital on the plant
floor by empowering those workers to make immediate
decisions where and when they could have the most
impact. The coffee company expects that CDC Factory will
integrate with its Oracle ERP application and provide
real-time visibility into detailed operating metrics
including production rates, yields, utilization, and
per-unit cost. With CDC Factory, this critical
information is provided both in real-time during
production runs and in summary immediately at the end of
a shift, and helps enable quick decisions that may
eliminate inefficiencies and production cost overruns in
the key areas such as labor utilization, materials and
packaging waste, and administration time. Several
customers using CDC Factory in food processing plants
around the globe have reported significant increases in
production efficiency ranging from approximately 5
percent to 20 percent, as well as reduced investments in
raw materials and finished goods inventory and reduced
cost of waste.
According to AMR Research’s Alert Article, ”CDC Software
Delivers Operational Excellence,” published on July 2,
2007: “AMR Research’s Manufacturing Peer Forum members
say that unlocking the potential of plant operations
personnel and letting them take ownership of the
improvement process has been highly successful in
operations excellence initiatives. We couldn’t agree
more, having been long been proponents of role-based,
industry-specific templates for manufacturing-focused
software applications. While this approach has been long
embraced by MES and EAM best of breeds, ERP-based
manufacturing software applications continue to deliver
back-office user paradigms to the shop floor. This
forces users rather than software to be adaptive. CDC
Factory breaks this paradigm, offering users an
easy-to-consume application that supports rather than
hinders their productivity, while acting as a front end
to virtually any back-end ERP.”
“We are very excited to have this premier coffee
processor and retailer join our growing family of food
processing and consumer products customers,” said Mark
Sutcliffe, general manager of CDC Factory for CDC
Software. “We believe this blue-chip customer win is yet
another example of CDC Factory’s growing momentum and
the market’s interest in the solution’s compelling value
proposition. CDC Factory creates an environment of
accountability and provides significant visibility into
the shop floor which should help this forward-thinking
company expand their Continuous Improvement Program
throughout their operations and leverage their human
capital on the plant floor which will help propel even
greater levels of productivity and efficiency. We look
forward to partnering with this leader in premium coffee
for many productive years.”
CDC Factory is an out-of-the box MOM solution that can
be deployed in as little as eight weeks with any of the
leading ERP platforms. This packaged solution enables
real-time decision making to support a demand-driven
strategy at all levels in the organization, from factory
floor operators to executive management. Leading
manufacturers are using CDC Factory to reduce operating
costs and waste, unlock hidden capacity, improve
customer service and employee satisfaction, while
minimizing risk by assuring regulatory compliance.
About CDC Factory
CDC Factory is the first packaged manufacturing
operations system for food and consumer products
manufacturers. By standardizing the best practices of
lean manufacturing, OEE (Overall Equipment
Effectiveness) and continuous improvement, CDC Factory
provides a real-time framework that integrates
scheduling, operations, quality and maintenance. The
solution enables bottom-line profit improvements within
six months by exposing hidden opportunities for
performance improvement. CDC Factory eliminates reams of
paperwork and provides operators and supervisors with
clear, real-time insight into the performance of
production lines. CDC Factory empowers workers to
improve production performance, increase operational
efficiencies and see how they actively contribute to
profitability.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes "forward-looking statements"
within the meaning of the United States Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and includes
statements regarding or relating to, among others, our
beliefs regarding the implementation of CDC Factory and
the potential benefits thereof, expectations regarding
the integration of CDC Factory with other software and
the benefits thereof, our beliefs regarding the momentum
of CDC Factory and the market perception and acceptance
thereof, our beliefs regarding the potential operational
benefits of using CDC Factory, the ability to leverage
human capital on the plant floor and the ability to
realize greater levels of productivity and efficiency,
beliefs regarding the ability of CDC Factory to address
the needs of process manufacturers such as this premier
coffee processor, the ability improve efficiencies,
improve production, yields, feedback, visibility and
accountability into plant floor, metrics, operations and
customer order fill rates, the ability of our products
to provide key functionality, allow better decision
making, drive cost savings and provide competitive
advantages, reduce downtime due to inefficiency, improve
changeover time, portion control and accountability,
increase output, throughput and accuracy of root-cause
analyses, realize additional cost savings, operating
margins and competitive advantages, the ease and timing
of deploying our solutions, and the ability to realize
upfront value using our products. These statements are
based on management's current expectations and are
subject to risks and uncertainties and changes in
circumstances. There are important factors that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those
anticipated in the forward looking statements including,
among others: the conditions of market; the continued
ability of CDC Factory solutions to address process
manufacturer's business requirements; demand for and
market acceptance of new and existing manufacturing
operations management solutions; and development of new
functionalities which would allow companies to compete
more effectively. Further information on risks or other
factors that could cause results to differ is detailed
in filings or submissions with the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission made by CDC
Corporation in its Annual Report for the year ended
December 31, 2006 on Form 20-F filed on July 2, 2007.
All forward-looking statements included in this press
release are based upon information available to
management as of the date of the press release, and you
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward
looking statements which speak only as of the date of
this press release. The company assumes no obligation to
update or alter the forward-looking statements whether
as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise. |
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