Western Data Systems announces CompassCONTRACT release6.0 for the aerospace and defense industry.

CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 1997--Western Data Systems (WDS) Thursday announced availability of CompassCONTRACT release 6.0, a comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for the aerospace and defense industry. Release 6.0 includes:

-- A broad range of

manufacturing, engineering and procurement in a mixed

commercial and military production environment

-- Accelerated planning capabilities, utilizing parallel

processing technology

-- CompassMRO -- a new product for maintenance, repair and

overhaul operations

Developed in close cooperation with aerospace industry leaders McDonnell Douglas and Hughes Aircraft, new capabilities in release 6.0 significantly enhance CompassCONTRACT for lean/agile manufacturing, integrated product development and supply chain management.

Already the leading ERP product for the aerospace and defense industry, CompassCONTRACT now provides even greater depth of support for the special needs of that industry, as well as for cross-industry best practices.

"WDS customers are transforming their businesses to leverage the rapid changes taking place in the aerospace industry today. We're working closely with them to make sure CompassCONTRACT and all of our CompassENTERPRISE products support their new streamlined business processes," said Anton Rodde, WDS president.

CompassCONTRACT is a comprehensive client/server Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system designed specifically for the needs of the commercial and military aerospace industry. It includes integrated applications to support manufacturing, engineering, procurement, cost and contract management in both the new product manufacturing and maintenance, repair and overhaul environments.

CompassCONTRACT uses the Oracle7 RDBMS and is closely integrated with the Oracle financial applications to form a complete ERP solution.

New Functionality

-- Advanced configuration management capabilities to support

concurrent engineering, as well as improved material planning and

production control throughout the manufacturing process. Key

features include: end item and affected item effectivity,

the ability to use multiple effectivity types in a single bill of

material and extended BOM usage controls.

-- New resource planning capabilities to support various levels of

project or contract group planning, controlled utilization of

material across multiple contracts and/or commercial production,

and optional pegging of manufacturing and purchase orders to

specific sales orders.

-- New production control capabilities to support streamlined

manufacturing with deliver-to location and priority identification

at receiving, enhanced ordering rules and automatic order

close-out options.

Accelerated Planning

With release 6.0, the CompassCONTRACT MRP processor has been completely redeveloped to provide dramatically accelerated resource planning. By taking full advantage of parallel processing technology, CompassCONTRACT MRP runs can now be achieved in a fraction of the time required in the past -- even for large and complex bills of material.

In benchmark testing with multi-processor servers, typical MRP runs were shown to take as little as 12 percent of the time they would have previously taken on the same machine. This accelerated capability means that re-planning can now be done much more often, and that even more sophisticated planning options can be deployed within available processing windows.

New Support for MRO Operations

The new CompassMRO product provides important new functional support for the special needs of the maintenance, repair and overhaul environment. For more information on CompassMRO, see the related announcement on that product.

Availability

CompassCONTRACT release 6.0 is available May 30 for controlled shipment on Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC, Hewlett-Packard HP 9000 and Digital Alpha AXP UNIX servers, and will be available for general shipment on June 30.

About Western Data Systems

Western Data Systems (WDS) is the leading supplier of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) manufacturing and business application software solutions to the commercial and military aerospace industry.

WDS customers are major aerospace companies and government MRO facilities in North America and Europe, including many of the industry's largest organizations such as GEC Marconi, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas, the U.S. Department of Defense and many other key suppliers throughout the global aerospace supply chain.

Note to Editors: The WDS logo, CompassENTERPRISE, CompassCONTRACT and CompassMRO are registered trademarks of Western Data Systems of Nevada Inc. Any other product or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Western Data Systems, Calabasas

Mary Lou Miller, 818/880-0800

818/880-1424 (fax)

miller@westdata.com

http://www.westdata.com