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Owens-Illinois Expands Workgroup Technology Collaborative PDM to Embrace Engineering Consolidations
ProductCenter Centralizes Product Access and Automates Standardized Release ControlBURLINGTON, Mass., July 17, 2002 — Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) (NASDAQ: WKGP), a leading provider of collaborative product data management (PDM), today announced that Owens-Illinois, Inc. is upgrading and expanding its implementation of ProductCenter™. In line with initiatives to reduce costs, additional licenses of ProductCenter were purchased to support the relocation of the company's North American Food and Beverage team to Toledo. In addition, the team switched to the Owens-Illinois Plastic Group standard product design software, Pro/Engineer. A WTC customer since 1995, centralized product data access, revision/release control, and process automation through ProductCenter has minimized disruptions to business during this restructuring, while compressing design cycle times, protecting product quality, and enhancing customer responsiveness.
With annual revenues in excess of $6 billion, Owens-Illinois is a worldwide market leader of plastic and glass containers and enclosures for a variety of industries, including food and beverage, household, chemical, and automotive fluid products, health care industry, and child-resistant closures.
"We initially selected WTC on the strength of its CAD integration suite, particularly its ProductCenter Pro/Engineer Integrator," states Brad Felske, Owens-Illinois PDM administrator. "We're adding new Pro/Engineer users with the businesses consolidation in Toledo. With ProductCenter integrations, in no time, new users are on-line and in-sync with our product processes. Users quickly reap the benefits of increased productivity with collaborative PDM capabilities directly accessible from their familiar application environment."
On Owens-Illinois' expanded use of ProductCenter Felske adds, "Also, the new ProductCenter 8.1, particularly the full-featured Web Client and 8.1's advanced security features, will allow us to tie in our vendor and supplier community, which will improve collaboration and communication there as well and hence, time-to-market of our products."
In addition to the ProductCenter core PDM solution and ProductCenter Pro/Engineer™ Integrators, ProductCenter™ GenView™ is also in use at Owens-Illinois. It conveniently automates the creation of viewable files of the wide variety of data generated with the company's diverse product lines for outside plant distribution and immediate access from any of the over 140 Owens-Illinois locations worldwide. As a result, the full spectrum of data generated throughout the product lifecycle is widely accessible, reused and referenced readily, and precisely and securely managed in accordance with regulatory requirements, such as ISO 9001.
"Product innovation has been a cornerstone of Owens-Illinois success for over sixty years," adds Jay Pappas, WTC vice president of product management. "We're pleased to play a part in this success through continual refinement of ProductCenter's collaborative PDM capabilities, and especially our industry leading CAD integration product suite, to help maximize their competitiveness."
About Owens-Illinois
Owens-Illinois is the largest manufacturer of glass containers in North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand, and one of the largest in Europe. O-I also is a worldwide manufacturer of plastics packaging with operations in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Plastics packaging products manufactured by O-I include containers, closures, and prescription product. For additional information visit the company's Web site at www.o-i.com.
About Workgroup Technology Corporation
Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) develops, markets and supports ProductCenter™, a web-enabled, extended enterprise Collaborative Product Data Management (PDM) solution that provides Document Management, Design Integration, Configuration Control, Change Management, and Enterprise Integration for optimizing product development. Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, the company differentiates itself on the basis of its controlled and secure accessibility, enterprise integration, and quick adaptability of its software. Thousands of users at mid-sized and global companies are in production and benefit from WTC products, including ABB, Inc.; Baker Oil Tools; Eaton Corporation; FlightSafety International; General Electric Company; Goodrich Turbine Fuel Technologies; Honeywell; Millipore Corporation; Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.; U.S. Army; and Whirlpool Corporation. The company's Web site is located at www.workgroup.com.
WTC, the WTC logo, ProductCenter, myPDM, GenView and WebLink are trademarks or registered trademarks of Workgroup Technology Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other brands, logos, products or company names are the copyrights and/or trademarks of their respective holders.
