IDS Scheer and Minitab Join Forces to Deliver Unified Six Sigma Offering

Business Wire, Feb 14, 2008

IDS Scheer Underlines Business Performance Initiative with the Integration of Minitab 15 into the ARIS Platform

ORLANDO, Fla. -- IDS Scheer, the leading provider of business process management, and Minitab Inc., the leading global provider of software and services for quality improvement, today announced at ARIS ProcessWorld 2008 Americas a technology partnership that will offer joint customers an integrated solution for Six Sigma, a rigorous methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operational performance, practices and systems. Customers need BPM to constantly align their processes with business needs. ARIS Six Sigma combines IDS Scheer's proven Business Process Excellence approach and Six Sigma's statistics-driven view -- this combination guarantees both visibility into the specific reasons for weak points in critical processes, but also enables customers to implement processes for continuous improvement.

"We are pleased to leverage our long-term experience and proven process management software by joining forces with the de-facto statistics standard for Six Sigma projects, provided by Minitab," said Karl Wagner, Director ARIS Product and Solution Management, at IDS Scheer. "The goal of our partnership with Minitab is to help our joint customers to accelerate and complete their Six Sigma projects successfully. The integrated offering will provide full support for the Define Measure Analyze Improve Control (DMAIC) cycle for Six Sigma initiatives.

"We expect the results of this partnership will bring tremendous benefits to the companies and organizations that use our products," said Jean-Pierre Mulley, Product Planning Manager for Minitab Inc. "Closer integration will give ARIS users easier access to the accurate and rigorous data analysis at the center of Six Sigma, and Minitab users benefit by gaining meaningful enterprise data from their most important business processes."

A recent report from Forrester Research demonstrates the criticality of Six Sigma within BPM. In its November 21, 2007 report titled Making the Marriage Work: Lean, Six Sigma, And the Business Process Maturity Model, senior analyst Andy Salunga notes: "As processes become standardized, Six Sigma methods and tools take on a more prominent role ...Managers can now also use Six Sigma tools to analyze root causes of process failure and to bring each process under control by eliminating variation."

About IDS Scheer

IDS Scheer is the market leader in Business Process Management (BPM) software, solutions and services for corporations and public organizations worldwide. With its unrivaled ARIS Platform for Process Excellence, the company offers an integrated, comprehensive solution portfolio for the strategy, design, implementation and controlling of business processes. Utilizing the ARIS Value Engineering (AVE) approach, IDS Scheer consultants bridge the gap between corporate strategy, business processes, IT solutions and process controlling. As a Global SAP Services Partner, strategic SAP development partner and SAP Vertical Solution Reseller, IDS Scheer offers small/medium enterprises to Global 1000 companies a process-oriented approach to optimize Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Approximately 3,000 employees in over 70 countries serve the company's 7,000 customers. In 2007, IDS Scheer's revenues reached 394 million Euro / 576 million USD (preliminary figures). Established in 1984 by Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer, IDS Scheer is listed in the TecDAX on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Germany).

For more information, please visit http://www.ids-scheer.com/us.> About Minitab Inc.

Minitab Inc. is one of the world's leading developers of statistical analysis and process improvement software for academic and commercial users. Minitab Statistical Software is the preferred package for businesses of all sizes and is used in more than 80 countries by thousands of distinguished companies, including Toshiba, 3M, Honeywell International, Wachovia, DuPont, Samsung and leading Six Sigma consultants. It has been used to implement virtually every major Six Sigma quality improvement initiative, and to teach statistics in over 4,000 colleges and universities worldwide. Quality Companion by Minitab is the package professionals use to plan and execute Six Sigma projects in companies around the world, including Xerox, ITT Industries, Providence Health System, Nissan North America, and LexisNexis. Minitab Inc., headquartered in State College, Pa., operates offices in the United Kingdom, France, and Australia, and has additional representatives throughout the world. For more information, visit www.minitab.com.