05/16/2005

Brooks Software, a division of Brooks Automation, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRKS), and a provider of real-time enterprise applications for discrete manufacturing environments, and SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the availability of Brooks' Integration Gateway, now certified through SAP's "Powered by SAP NetWeaver(tm)" program. Brooks said the Integration Gateway will enable interoperability of Brooks' real-time manufacturing software with SAP's business solutions, and that this increased interoperability improves a manufacturer's responsiveness to changes in customer order demand and other unplanned events that occur throughout their global supply chain. "Based on our years of experience in the manufacturing industry, SAP is a leader in providing plant-to-business and business-to-business interoperability," said Raymond Homan, vice president, High Tech, SAP AG. "Due to the dynamics in supply chain structures, including both offshoring and outsourcing, high-tech manufacturers are demanding top floor integration with 'any' shop floor. We view this partnership and the convergence of P2B and B2B as a key differentiator for SAP's distributed manufacturing solution."

"Even with all the investments in enterprise business applications, manufacturers are still struggling to match their resource allocation with customer order mix," said Joe Bellini, executive vice president and general manager of Brooks Software. "As product lifecycles continue to get shorter and product mix increases, this problem becomes even more complex. The relationship between SAP and Brooks and the applications we are developing will finally give manufacturers a way to address these fundamental issues."

Brooks provided the following additional information:

• Brooks' SAP-Certified Integration Gateway, available now, is the architectural framework of Brooks' Enterprise Interoperability Hub, which integrates Brooks' real-time manufacturing applications with SAP's business solutions.



• The Integration Gateway provides a Web-service integration solution that is aligned with Enterprise Service Architecture, SAP's blueprint for service-oriented architecture, and enabled through the use of ISA-95 Standards. For example, now customer orders can flow seamlessly from mySAP ERP into the FACTORYworks® Manufacturing Execution System (MES).



• FACTORYworks Enterprise Integration Gateway 3.3.1 was certified for deployment on SAP WebAS 6.40 and for its integration to the SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0 via iView technology.



• Brooks plans to release ISA-95-based process support for production performance, production schedule and production definition information later this year. These Smart Adapters will enable real-time manufacturing visibility to allow manufacturers to fully realize the benefits of their ERP implementations.