San Ramon, CA – January 17, 2006 – Relevant Business Systems, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software provider to leading Aerospace & Defense, Engineer-to-Order, Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul, Contract Manufacturers and other project-based firms, announced today that Inter-Coastal Electronics, Inc. has purchased Relevant’s Enterprise Software.

Inter-Coastal is a fifteen-year-old company that designs, develops and manufactures state of the art simulation, training, and instrumentation devices for the U.S. and other military forces. Engineering excellence allowed Inter-Coastal a first mover advantage in the market and has continued to support Inter-Coastal’s reputation for technological innovation. The company has experienced steady growth and now competes with multi-nationals for large government contracts that require not only technological competence, but also unparalleled executional excellence.

Dan Horne, Inter-Coastal CFO, states, “Governments typically are low risk purchasers. Our technology is unquestioned. We want to ensure that we can excel operationally as well. Turning contracts unreasonably fast gets peoples’ attention. We like doing that.”

To help Inter-Coastal aggressively drive its production from engineering through shipping, the company looked to upgrade its enterprise software, moving from their original system to a system geared to enable the firm to more aggressively manage its projects. Dan Horne was in charge of sourcing the new the software. Critical capabilities he sought were:

• WBS (Work Breakdown Structure): 98% of Inter-Coastal’s work is custom engineered and virtually all work needs to be tracked by job cost codes. Inter-Coastal wanted a system capable of driving proposals and allowing the company to develop highly granular metrics, including making sure engineers could log all their time against specific projects. Relevant’s WBS enables Inter-Coastal to track BCWP (Budgeted Cost of Work Performed) versus ACWP (Actual Cost of Work Performed) versus BCWS (Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled) on a project-by-project basis in real time. With these metrics, Inter-Coastal will be able to measure any project’s performance, at a point in time where deviations can be addressed prior to becoming crises.
• Earned Value (EV) and Rate Pooling: Like all government contractors, Inter-Coastal is audited frequently by the government to ensure that contracts are being billed appropriately. WBS reporting automatically satisfies government EV reporting requirements, greatly reducing the time required to extract the required information and reassure government auditors. Many government agencies no longer accept standard overhead pool rates derived from prior year actuals to justify overhead charges. Relevant’s new rate pooling capability streamlines and automates reporting requirements by gathering and storing actual overhead, allowing it to be analyzed and reported in individualized, customer centric modes. This flexibility encompasses both time frames and choice of line items, both of which can be varied to adhere to individual contract requirements.

Dan Horne had one additional requirement: an excellent supplier reputation for customer service. After having driven over five ERP installations in his career, Dan wanted any installation challenges that the company would face to be internal – where he could effectively manage and control them. Horne believes the choice he made with Relevant will ensure that. Horne says, “I’ve seen slicker guys up in front of the room giving a presentation. But I wasn’t after salesmanship – the Relevant team simply knew our business inside out. They didn’t have to get someone else on the phone to answer our questions. The answers were in their heads based on years of experience dealing with Aerospace and project-oriented customers. That’s simply invaluable.”

Pat Garrehy, Relevant President and CEO, states, “At Relevant, we’ve worked hard to ensure that our ERP system delivers superior performance for project-oriented manufacturers. Relevant’s architecture was designed from the ground up for companies seeking outstanding WBS and EV capabilities.”