Peoria, IL, November 16, 2004 -- Advanced Technology Services (ATS), a leader in managed services for production equipment maintenance, IT infrastructure support, and industrial parts repair for manufacturers, today announced it will play a key role in the National Center for Manufacturing Science's Smart Machine Pilot Project, which aims to extract valuable metrics from manufacturing equipment to improve performance, and ultimately, profit.

ATS joins Red River Army Depot, Cherry Point NADEP, Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Cincinnati Lamb, a Midwest engine manufacturer, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in the pilot project.

Valuable information like cycle time, process consistency, utilization rates, and overall machine health is buried inside individual machine controls on the shop floor, making the extraction of information from these isolated islands difficult and time consuming. At a typical manufacturing plant, support and management personnel are often left to make decisions based on incomplete and subjective information, and as a result, can miss opportunities for continuous improvement and, in many cases, profit.

ATS and the other members of the Smart Machine Pilot Project will install equipment to monitor the status and health of scores of manufacturing processes. They will also equip machines at various manufacturing sites with the capability to automatically gather and report their performance in a consistent fashion. Autonomous software processes will monitor the data to help identify anomalies and report pending problems to operators and management personnel. Better information enables better management to achieve the goal of making parts better, faster, and at lower cost.

"We are proud to be collaborating with the SMPP team to advance ways for American manufacturers to reap more efficiencies," said ATS president Jeffrey Owens. "By providing more intelligent access to the information gleaned from manufacturing equipment, ultimately manufacturers will be able to drive profitability and maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace."

"The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences is pleased to provide seed funding for the Smart Machines Pilot Project," said Tony Haynes, NCMS Program Manager. "Better understanding of manufacturing process performance and equipment health monitoring for prognostics are crucial elements of continuous process improvement. This project and its follow-on efforts will help increase productivity and keep American manufacturing competitive."