Recent Research Aligns with Lawson’s Unified Approach to Enterprise Asset Management and Enterprise Resource Planning

Manufacturers can achieve “best-in-class” performance with Lawson software and services

SINGAPORE, Aug. 27, 2008 – Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN) today shared key findings of a recent Aberdeen Group report, “Enterprise Asset Management: Maximizing Return on Assets and Emerging Trends.” According to the report, “best-in-class” manufacturing companies use asset management strategies to help reduce operational costs, improve profitability and ultimately improve their competitive advantage.

The report, which surveyed more than 160 manufacturing executives, showed these “best-in-class” manufacturers, on average, realize 97 percent plant throughput, 93 percent overall equipment effectiveness and 31 percent less asset downtime than other manufacturers.

The full Aberdeen report is available for download at: www.lawson.com/EAMManufacturing.

The Aberdeen study, conducted by Mehul Shah and Matthew Littlefield, research analysts with Aberdeen’s Global Manufacturing Practice, shows “best-in-class” manufacturing companies are more likely to have implemented Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems and linked those EAM systems with their plant floor and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The study also found that “best-in-class” manufacturing companies tend to integrate energy management into their overall asset management strategy to help manage energy costs.

Lawson’s approach to EAM is in line with Aberdeen’s recommendations derived from the research. By using the Lawson M3 Enterprise Asset Management Suite with Lawson Business Intelligence in conjunction with other Lawson or third-party enterprise software systems, manufacturers can get a common view of data. This can ultimately help improve access to organization-wide production and asset performance data.

According to the report, manufacturing companies seeking to achieve “best-in-class” performance should:
· Improve visibility into production and asset performance across the enterprise through the use of asset analytics and dashboards;
· Invest in an EAM solution and establish real time interoperability between EAM and ERP;
· Move from a break-fix maintenance approach to a more predictive approach by adopting advanced capabilities such as Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM).

The Lawson M3 Enterprise Asset Management Suite can help manufacturers become a “best-in-class” organization. Designed for companies whose asset reliability is crucial for success, the suite can help manufacturers simplify management of operational assets by automating processes associated with preventive maintenance, work orders, diagnostics, vehicle operations and statistical analysis.

“The Lawson EAM system has helped us reduce spare parts inventory by 40 percent while improving production reliability,” said Claes Hansson, manager of maintenance and purchasing/inventory, Skånemejerier, one of the largest dairy companies in the Scandinavian market. “It gives us much better control over costs. We now know what our biggest expenditures are and where resources are located so we can avoid unnecessary costs.”

“Lawson Enterprise Asset Management and ERP applications help manufacturers achieve ‘best-in-class’ status through our industry-specific functionality,” said Brian Dunks, senior product manager for Lawson. “This study validates that asset-reliant companies need solutions like ours to help them better manage their business and deal with planned and unplanned disruptions.”