Watlow is in the process of implementing MAC-PAC XE at all of its international manufacturing sites. Watlow's plant in Mexico went live this Spring. The United Kingdom plant is now using MAC-PAC XE order processing, purchasing, and inter-site orders, and is slated to go live with full configuration and manufacturing by the end of the year. The expansion process will be completed when Watlow's German plant is brought up in 2005. At that point, all of Watlow's primary world-wide sites will be using MAC-PAC XE . Watlow already has eight sites using MAC-PAC XE within the United States.

The primary goal of this important project is to get all of Watlow's facilities on the common MAC-PAC XE business system so information can be more easily shared across the company. This is already creating a number of valuable benefits. For instance, since the UK site sells products made in the U.S. , as well as products made within their own facility, they regularly order products from the U.S. sites for their customers. Using MAC-PAC XE 's 'Remote Sourcing' and 'Computer Integrated Distribution' (CID) capability, the process of setting up sales orders that ship directly from the U.S. to UK customers has been greatly simplified. This process significantly reduces the effort for both plants while providing greater visibility of order status for everyone. It also eliminates some of the challenges involved in spanning 7-9 time zones between some of Watlow's sites.

In addition to most of the same functions used in Watlow's U.S. sites, the European sites are also implementing the MAC-PAC XE VAT and Intrastat reporting.

About Watlow

Watlow is a leader in engineering and manufacturing commercial electric heaters, industrial heaters, electric heating elements, temperature sensors and temperature controllers - all the elements in a complete thermal system.

Since the company's founding in 1922, Watlow has brought its thermal expertise to numerous applications, including semiconductor, plastics processing, foodservice equipment, life sciences, power generation and others. Headquartered in St. Louis , Missouri , Watlow is the largest custom designer and manufacturer of industrial heaters, sensors, controllers and software with offices and manufacturing facilities around the world.

###