Open Ratings Appoints Advisory Board; Taps Former Executives from American Express and Honeywell to Guide Fast-Growing Leader in Supplier Risk Management

Business Wire, Sept 14, 2005

BOSTON -- Open Ratings, which helps dozens of global manufacturers reduce risk in the supply network with better intelligence, has formed an advisory board as part of its commitment to design and deliver superior solutions for supplier management.

The board's founding members, Joseph Yacura and Dennis Lemon are well known and highly respected in the supplier relationship management and supply chain fields. Together, they bring critical customer perspective that will help Open Ratings move quickly to capitalize on the opportunity found in helping organizations of all sizes leverage insight to reduce risk and increase the value of business relationships.

"Joe and Dennis bring a singular combination to us: vision tested and proven in the real world," said Jim Lawton, vice president of marketing for Open Ratings. "We're honored to have their guidance at this exciting time in our growth."

Yacura is founder and chief strategist for Supply Chain Management, LLC, (www.scmllc.biz) a supply chain consulting and outsourcing provider, specializing in strategic planning, policy development, knowledge tools development, deployment and operational leadership for large global companies. His expertise in helping companies build and manage world-class procurement organizations was honed by more than 20 years in senior executive positions at companies known for innovative and highly effective strategies in sourcing, including American Express, Intercontinental Hotels, Pacific Bell and IBM.

Lemon is president of BlueRiver-Consulting, LLC, which specializes in supplier quality and risk management solutions. He's a 30-year veteran of the aerospace and defense industries and considered an expert in systems, solutions and strategies for global supplier spend and performance analysis and management. He recently retired from Honeywell Corporation where he was responsible for the defining and implementing of common supplier performance and risk management processes and tools throughout the enterprise.

Open Ratings' ability to deliver what manufacturers value most - a way to cultivate stability and world-class performance in the supply base - is attracting new customers in high-growth markets, including automotive, aerospace and defense and electronics. It delivers this powerful advantage by providing detailed and actionable intelligence about supplier performance that goes well beyond the most basic credit reports; manufacturers' own information about service and quality and procurement managers' Rolodexes and gut instincts that are so often the backbone of engaging and managing supplier relationships. Using machine learning, its products automatically integrate rich, relevant data, including court actions, government investigations, quality complaints and much more into supplier profiles. Based on customers' defined tolerances, Open Ratings' solutions generate desk top alerts when something appears to put the supplier's viability or stability at risk, which can be acted upon as needed, in some cases that entails intervention directly with supplier; alternatively the company may seek another source.

Open Ratings Inc. helps companies make better, more profitable decisions with data fusion solutions that provide business performance insights. Its pattern recognition technology aggregates business data from inside and outside the enterprise, cleans and unifies this data, and applies proprietary analytics to deliver actionable intelligence on the performance, financial opportunities and risks presented by trading partners. Its customers include many of the world's leaders in aerospace, automotive and industrial equipment manufacturing. The machine learning technology behind Open Ratings' solutions is the result of cutting-edge research started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's world renowned Media Labs. Based in Boston, Mass., the company can be reached at (781) 290-0828 or www.openratings.com.