Many of QAD’s global manufacturing customers have been affected by the adverse economic conditions over the last 18 months. Working closely with its customers, QAD has developed specific capabilities to support the evolving challenges that manufacturing executives face as they move to a new and more challenging business environment. QAD 2010, the latest release of QAD’s Enterprise Applications, helps both existing and new QAD customers address their challenges and work towards recovery.

“The economic environment has been challenging for manufacturers all over the world, with fall in demand, margin pressure, reduced IT staffing, structural changes, and users being asked to perform new and more tasks,” said Pamela Lopker, president and founder of QAD. “Many of our customers need help, and that’s what we’ve focused on in QAD 2010 – better usability, more access to data, and faster deployment. We see ourselves as partners in the recovery process.”

The demand for more rapid access to information and flexible business processes has stressed IT organizations that already have seen reduced budgets and smaller headcounts. QAD 2010 enables global manufacturers to continue to drive operational effectiveness by leveraging their IT investment in delivering solutions that enable doing more with less across the entire organization.

QAD’s Easy On-Boarding makes complex implementations a thing of the past as users can be up and running in days, not months — aligning the speed of information with the velocity of business change. Together with the freedom to deploy On Demand or On Premise, this makes QAD Enterprise Applications 2010 extremely fast and easy to deploy, and reduces the need for dedicated application expertise.

QAD Enterprise Applications 2010 offers more functionality than ever before with enhancements made to all modules of the software suite, including:

*QAD Business Intelligence: QAD Business Intelligence makes analysis and reporting on all business information simpler than with older business intelligence technologies, leveraging a star schema and new analysis tools. With uncertainties in the economy remaining, the need for accurate information to assist in decision-making is paramount.
*QAD Enterprise Financials: Over 43 new operational metrics are built in to the latest release of the QAD Enterprise Financials suite. These allow end users clear visibility of all indicators to drive efficiency within a business' operation.
*QAD Customer Management: QAD debuts a new user interface within QAD Configurator. This new user interface represents the ‘state of the art’ in usability and makes the applications simpler to learn and use.
*QAD Enterprise Materials Transfer: Building on QAD’s existing offering, this release features capabilities to streamline the back-office financial transactions related to movement of materials around a global or multi-entity company, significantly reducing what can be a major challenge for some global companies.
*QAD Lean Manufacturing: QAD was one of the first companies to support Lean Principles in its products, and this release includes brand new features with a new approach to Kanban sizing and management.
*QAD Enterprise Asset Management: QAD’s excellence in Enterprise Asset Management now features QAD’s advanced usability and full integration to QAD 2010.
*QAD Supply Chain Portal: Previously named QAD Supply Visualization, this SaaS (Software as a Service) product offers greater inventory visibility, providing a complete view into all of an organization’s suppliers and their performance metrics.
*QAD Trade Relations Management: Designed to help customers supplying retailers to manage their trade and promotional spending, QAD TRM increases the efficiency of promotional expenditure and allows for immediate visibility of promotional efficacy – giving customers supplying major retailers a real advantage.

“We see QAD Enterprise Applications 2010 as the best release of our product yet,” said Bill Keese, vice president, Research and Development for QAD. “Everything in this release is built to address challenges our manufacturing customers are facing today – and to help get them ready for the economic recovery of tomorrow.”

About QAD

QAD is a leading provider of enterprise applications for global manufacturing companies specializing in automotive, consumer products, electronics, food and beverage, industrial and life science products. QAD applications provide critical functionality for managing manufacturing resources and operations within and beyond the enterprise, enabling global manufacturers to collaborate with their customers, suppliers and partners to make and deliver the right product, at the right cost and at the right time. For more information about QAD, telephone +1 805-566-6000, or visit the QAD web site at www.qad.com.