Premier Manufacturing Support Services Selects Information Builders Performance Management Technology for Greater Insight and Accountability

Leading Facilities Management Company Creates Worldwide Reporting Framework for Measuring and Tracking Business Strategies


NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - September 29, 2008) - Information Builders, the independent leader in operational business intelligence (BI) systems, today announced that Premier Manufacturing Support Services, Inc. selected Information Builders WebFOCUS Performance Management Framework (PMF), a comprehensive application suite for measuring and tracking business strategies, to empower its workforce by giving them the ability to instantaneously share information and create customized reports.

Premier, a global industrial services supplier for the automotive industry, used WebFOCUS PMF to update a manual scorecarding system that automatically disseminates corporate objectives and captures project metrics from field personnel across 270 locations worldwide. The initiative is a key component of Premier's vision of being the preferred industrial service partner to the world's leading manufacturers.

"The WebFOCUS Performance Management Framework provides one-click access to operational data, enabling us to quickly generate reports and access the information we need to make better decisions," said Dan Bowling, director of IT at Premier. "Being able to visualize information through dashboards and graphical reports gives us a deeper understanding of data."

Premier restructured and simplified an existing scorecarding system with a Web-based reporting application built using WebFOCUS PMF. Managers use the performance framework to eliminate time-consuming re-entry of data, generate customized reports, relay information to field operators, and provide performance summaries to customers. WebFOCUS PMF brings greater insight to Premier's industrial services -- including production processes, maintenance programs, facilities management activities, and technical cleaning services -- resulting in better cost information for Premier's customers.

"It was easy and seamless to transition our existing scorecarding system and data into WebFOCUS PMF," Bowling said. "Now we can pull data directly from our financial and other systems, so our users can generate reports with customized parameters. WebFOCUS gave us more power with enhanced usability so that users at all levels of our organization gained immediate value with very little training."

"Premier achieved impressive results very quickly by providing real-time information to every level of their operation, including the facilities they manage for their customers," said Gerald D. Cohen, CEO and founder of Information Builders. "As a company specializing in the management of industrial services on a global scale, Premier's deployment of WebFOCUS PMF illustrates the value of metrics-based performance management. The real beneficiaries are Premier's customers."

About Premier Manufacturing Support Services, Inc.

Premier Manufacturing Support Services, Inc., headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a leading supplier of facility management and manufacturing support services to the global automotive industry, providing innovative solutions to the world's largest car, truck and motorcycle manufacturers. Founded in 1984, Premier became a subsidiary of Voith AG in 2005. Based in Heidenheim, Germany, Voith AG is a global leader in the paper, energy, mobility and service markets with a workforce of 37,000, sales of EUR 4 billion and over 270 locations worldwide. More information can be found at www.premiermss.com

About Information Builders

As a leading independent business intelligence (BI) company for the past 30 years, Information Builders has provided innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers, including most of the Fortune 100 and numerous U.S. federal government agencies. The company's flagship WebFOCUS product is the world's most widely used BI platform. Superior architecture and intuitive nature enables WebFOCUS to address the needs of everyone in the extended global enterprise -- executive, analytical, operational, and beyond. It provides the agility to adapt to changing business conditions with the security, scalability, and flexibility to support dozens to millions of users.

Unique to the company is the integration expertise it brings to the BI market. Information Builders iWay Software suite solves complex integration problems with pre-built components that require minimal custom programming. The award-winning combination of WebFOCUS and iWay give Information Builders customers the ability to embrace the company motto: "Everyone Makes Decisions."

Information Builders is committed to customer service excellence with a Professional Services division that specializes in building custom applications using WebFOCUS and iWay Software. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners.

Contact Information: Press Contacts: Kathleen Moran Information Builders (917) 339-6313 Karyn Martin Emerge PR (617) 729-3173