SAP Acquires Visiprise, Expands MES Capability

SAP AG has announced its intent to acquire Visiprise, Inc., a privately-held provider of manufacturing execution software solutions delivering integrated manufacturing operations to companies of all sizes. With the addition of Visiprise, SAP says it will deliver on its "Perfect Plant" strategy to bring together core SAP solutions with the software, hardware and services offerings of ecosystem partners to drive innovation for discrete manufacturers.

"The automation of business processes for manufacturing companies has been core to the SAP strategy for more than 30 years," said Jim Hagemann Snabe, corporate office and member of the executive council, SAP AG.

"We are excited to combine Visiprise's industry-leading manufacturing execution solutions with the power of the SAP Business Suite. This combination will offer manufacturers better visibility by linking the operations of the plant floor to production planning and operations management, enabling manufacturers to respond profitably to the growing demands of their global customers."

According to SAP, the combination of SAP Business Suite applications, the SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII) application and Visiprise Manufacturing provides network-wide visibility, enterprise orchestration, plant to network data integration and the ability to deploy end-to-end, "plan to make" processes across multiple plants through an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) solution from a single partner.

SAP claims customers operating distributed manufacturing operations with facilities across the globe also benefit from SAP's worldwide support, services and ecosystem partners to lower total cost of ownership and achieve fast time to value for multi-plant execution system deployments.

"Best in class manufacturers understand the value of the integration of MES with ERP to provide a comprehensive manufacturing control solution," said Sean McCloskey, president and CEO, Visiprise. "The compatibility between the Visiprise offering and SAP is undeniable and proven. We are excited to join the SAP team and work together to further serve our customers as their needs continue to evolve and grow."

SAP anticipates that the acquisition will be completed in July 2008 pending necessary regulatory approvals in the United States and Europe. Visiprise employs approximately 300 employees and has additional offices in Carlsbad, California and Kiev, Ukraine. The company will provide additional details about the integration of the companies after the closing of the transaction. Terms of the transaction are not disclosed publicly.