Managing Automation Recognizes Sopheon-Glatfelter Innovation Partnership

Manufacturing Industry Panel Names Glatfelter Innovation High-Achiever on “Progressive Manufacturing 50” List; Sopheon Recognized for Technology Contribution

Sopheon, the international software and services company, announced today that Managing Automation has selected Glatfelter Corporation, a Sopheon customer, to the magazine’s list of “Progressive Manufacturing 50” (PM50) honorees for 2007.  The annual award competition recognizes 50 manufacturers across eight disciplines that are using technology and other means to achieve outstanding innovation process and product manufacturing results.  Glatfelter was selected by a panel of industry judges as the “High Achiever” in the category of “Innovation Mastery.”  Sopheon was honored as a PM50 Technology Partner for the role its Accolade® product life cycle management software has played in enabling Glatfelter’s product innovation success.

Glatfelter is a leading global supplier of specialty papers and engineered products. The company's offerings are used for everything from books and postage stamps to tea bags and flooring overlays.  Glatfelter began using Sopheon’s Accolade solution in 2002 as a technology backbone component of its CLEAR initiative, a central goal of which was to increase the business return on investments in product innovation.  Achievements of that program that most impressed Managing Automation’s judges included:

• A 25-percent reduction in the average time required to get a new product to market;
• A 55-percent reduction in the number of new product failures;
• A 500-percent increase in the number of new products introduced.

“The genesis of Glatfelter’s emergence as a leader in innovation was the fact that, early on, in order to remain competitive, it recognized a need to enhance its approach to new product development,” said David Brousell, editor-in-chief of Managing Automation.  “Through its CLEAR initiative, Glatfelter has demonstrated how vision, combined with strategy and the right technology, can produce transformative business results.”

“At the inception of our CLEAR initiative, Glatfelter was a relatively small-sized regional producer of commodity papers,” said Scott Mingus, director of product development for Glatfelter.  “This comprehensive program, supported by the collaboration and automation strengths of Sopheon’s Accolade system, has in a few years’ time turned Glatfelter into one of the largest and most diverse suppliers of specialty papers in the world.  We value this honor, as well as the technology partnership with Sopheon that has been such a vital part of our product innovation success.”

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