06/03/2004

Action Technologies, a software firm specializing in business process management, has expanded its ActionWorks Business Process Management (BPM) suite to enable companies to incorporate standards compliance into their work management systems.

The vendor supplied the following details:

The ActionWorks Standards Coordinator is the only BPM package that supports the requirements called for in the newer process-based standards, including ISO/TS 16949, AS9100, TREAD, and TL 9000.

In today's increasingly complex world, standards play a critical role in allowing companies to ensure high quality results for all of their operations, including managing external third party contractors and labs, real-time measurement of customer satisfaction and perception, ensuring timely delivery of customer products and monitoring executive performance. The general benefits of standards are safety, quality, interchangeability of parts or systems, and consistency across corporations.

According to Jack Arnold, Senior VP of Action Technologies, "As we've seen in the development of more recent standards such as ISO/TS 16949 in the automotive industry, the importance of tying complex process implementation and execution to customer satisfaction is emerging in a big way. The ability of suppliers and OEMs to succeed is linked more closely today than ever before, and companies must ensure proper implementation, execution, and auditability of their core processes. ActionWorks Standards Coordinator facilitates this by supporting a wide range of standards within structured and ad hoc process capabilities."

"Standards management is mission-critical to achieving the highest levels of quality and performance," said Andrew Bank, VP, Business Development at Thomson Scientific, By incorporating this task into a BPM application, Action Technologies is giving managers a valuable tool for standards compliance."

Randy Weil, Executive Vice President of IHS Group, notes, "At IHS, significant effort is devoted to integrating standards into the work flows/processes of our customers. The integration increases productivity, speed to market and quality. Along those lines, we see the emergence of process delivery, tied in with standards deployment, as a key way for companies to guarantee that they are delivering the highest possible levels of quality."