NEWS & EVENTS

EXTON, PA, April 05, 2005 – Spurred by new contracts with three manufacturers, including leading firms in the food and pharmaceutical industries, Advanced Automation Associates, Inc. (A3) today announced the expansion of its recently introduced APlus factory maintenance support services. Effective March 1, A3 has expanded its coverage to include 24/7 staffing and monitoring capabilities and has enhanced its customer relationship management (CRM) infrastructure in support of the APlus program.

• Announced last year, APlus is a total field support solution for manufacturing control and network systems in the pharmaceutical, specialty chemical, food and beverage, and other process industries. It was designed to help companies maximize manufacturing productivity and up-time by offering them a single point of contact, remote performance monitoring, and technical support management. A3 offers three levels of service support based on a client’s business requirements
• In operation, Advanced Automation engineers monitor factory’s control and information systems, network connections, and data interfaces across the manufacturing process line on a 24/7 basis to maximize performance and plant uptime.

The two enhancements announced today respond to direct requests from the clients who have already signed up for this service.

• Beyond the support desk – APlus provides 24 x 7 monitoring and remote diagnostics via a secure, web-based software solution and integrated control system technology – the company now offers 24-hour telephone and emergency dispatch services seven days a week. At Advanced Automation’s APlus Center in Exton, PA, A3 personnel will monitor the repair, communicate with the client if needed, and track the results to map failure trends. “With today’s cutbacks in plant engineering staffs, A3’s engineers are able to augment existing staffs and provide recommendations that greatly improve production performance,” explained Martin W. Michael, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing.
  
• Also announced was an expansion of the company’s CRM capabilities. “The technology system has been designed to enhance customer visibility of maintenance issues, improve uptime, and productivity of manufacturing plants vis-à-vis the management of key business functions and processes related to Call Management, Technical Assistance, OEM Management, and Emergency Dispatch,” said Michael. “Our new CRM infrastructure is a key mechanism to optimizing the delivery of our APlus plant support services solution to end-customers. The increased Call Management and Technical Assistance functionality,” he continued, “will enable us to build and maintain an extensive technical knowledge base on customers’ installed base configurations and service history.

“These two enhancements will allow us to resolve approximately 80 percent of all service requests via telephone support and enable us to provide emergency field service response on a guaranteed, rapid basis.”

“Our goal in establishing APlus is to supplement the skills and knowledge of the client’s on-site engineering team in order to prevent unscheduled downtime, effectively deal with emergencies, and plan necessary repairs,” Michael continued. These newest announcements add even more value to the APlus offering.

“Recent trends toward outsourcing and the reduction or elimination of the traditional internal plant and building maintenance organization have accelerated the requirement for offerings like APlus,” added Michael Blumberg, Chief Operating Officer of D. F. Blumberg Associates and an expert on the service industry. “I believe Advanced Automation Associates is uniquely qualified to address this growing need in the manufacturing sector.”