IQS Summit Extends Reach Globally Providing Solutions for Entire Manufacturing Supply Chain

CLEVELAND, Aug. 16, 2006 -- IQS, the leading provider of Enterprise Quality and Compliance Management Software held an industry summit to preview a global strategy for streamlining part traceability, product quality and supplier sourcing across a global value chain. The summit attendees represented the entire spectrum of the supply chain, including original manufactures, as well as large and small suppliers. Feedback from the summit confirmed that today's manufacturing delivery challenges are largely cross- organizational and the summit focused on a comprehensive solution.

At the summit, IQS unveiled its Global EcoSystem(TM) Strategy, providing the first cradle-to-grave approach for streamlining delivery and optimizing quality across a global value chain. IQS's Global EcoSystem(TM) is built on IQS's proven enterprise quality software system and adds the global capability to support single instance, multi-site and multi-language deployment requirements. The summit pivoted the optimization focus from inside an organization to solve product quality and sourcing challenges across organizations.

Kreg Kukor, Cequent's Director of Global Quality Systems weighed in on the strategic nature of the IQS' Global EcoSystem Strategy. "Today's successful suppliers need to be closely connected both upstream to OEM's and downstream to their supply channel. With its Global EcoSystem(TM), IQS is addressing the product launch and sourcing challenges at a holistic level. The comprehensive strategy allows us to team with our clients and vendors to improve collaboration, part traceability and product quality. This streamlining effect has the dual benefit of reducing cost and enhancing customer satisfaction by centralizing and improving information exchange."

"While many in the space are addressing niches of manufacturing process and quality, IQS is the first to address the product delivery process at a global level," commented John Cachat, IQS' founder and industry veteran. Cachat added, "Isolated optimization simply won't be enough to allow the manufacturers and their supply chain partners to achieve their goals of time and cost reduction while keeping quality levels high. IQS' tenure in the market and richness of product in key areas of supplier management, product launch and manufacturing quality give IQS a unique ability to successfully provide a global solution."

The Summit detailed the layers of the Global EcoSystem Strategy which include a foundation available today. The Global EcoSystem is built on IQS's robust system that currently supports over four hundred customers with tens of thousands of users. The Summit agenda provided insight into the components of the Global Ecosystem(TM) available today; Product Launch, Supplier Performance, Issue Tracking and Non-conformance Management, as well as Compliance and Audit. A hallmark of the IQS solution has always been coordinating all the components that touch quality with centralized information. With its upcoming release 6.8, previewed at the Summit, IQS will offer much of the "global glue" that will make the Global EcoSystem a reality. In version 6.8 IQS will provide a single instance of its Quality Data Hub across multiple sites/organizations and will offer support for multiple languages. This will enable IQS clients to assure quality globally regardless of where their clients and suppliers reside.

The Summit was comprised of customers across industries with representatives from automotive, medical devices, chemical, aerospace and FDA regulated agreement companies as well as press and industry analysts. Despite their diverse industries, the common theme of optimizing sourcing across their supply chain resonated with all of the attendees.

"We were thrilled to have such a diverse group of attendees at the Summit, and even more encouraged by the strong interest across the board from attendees for the adoption of the Global EcoSystem(TM) Strategy. While many of our customers are already using IQS today to optimize areas of their organization, the Summit made clear that the more broad-based the optimization efforts are, the greater the return. IQS looks forward to working with our customers exploring how to leverage supplier sourcing & collaboration enhancing manufacturing quality processes," stated Michael Rapaport, IQS President and CEO.

About IQS -

IQS is the industry leader in enterprise compliance and quality software solutions. IQS' software is used by over 20,000 users across automotive, medical devices, chemical, aerospace and FDA segments of manufacturing marketplace. Customers large and small such as Alcoa, Tenneco, Baxter, PolyOne, and American Axle, use IQS to optimize part traceability, supplier collaboration and overall product and process quality. IQS customers realize the unique benefit of saving time, and reducing cost - all while improving quality. IQS customers experience short payback times and bottom line returns on their investment. For more information, or an in-depth ROI model to understand your potential savings, visit www.iqs.com.