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Jena, Germany - More than 80 visitors attended the Boundary Scan Days event on May 3-4 sponsored by GÖPEL electronic GmbH (a 50% increase over last year's attendance). According to the company, the presentation of the new Boundary Scan hardware architecture SCANFLEX produced high interest among the attendees.

Many known Boundary Scan users, ATE vendors and chip manufacturers attended, including Siemens, Diehl Avionik, Phoenix Contact, National Semiconductor and Digitaltest. The companies discussed applications, test support and problem solving issues.

Previous Boundary Scan Days were held in Switzerland and Scandinavia, and they will also take place in Italy, the Benelux countries, France, Great Britain, the U.S. and Canada.

TAMPA -- Reptron Electronics, an electronics manufacturing services company, today reported first-quarter net sales from continuing operations of $34.8 million, a 2.2% decline from a year ago, for the period ended March 31. Net sales were down 3.6% sequentially.

The first quarter loss from continuing operations rose to $1.5 million, from $1 million last year, as the company was hit with startup costs associated with new customers and new programs.

"As in most previous years, our first quarter sales declined from the fourth quarter as our customer base typically has higher demands in the fourth quarter," said Paul J. Plante, president and CEO in a statement.

Gross profit percentage was 11%, 110 basis points higher than last year and 80 basis points higher sequentially.

Plante said the new programs will result in increased revenue and margin in the second quarter.

ATLANTA - Visiprise Manufacturing IL Module 1.0 is now a designated "Certified for SAP NetWeaver" application. This is an extension of the Visiprise collaboration with SAP AG previously announced in March.

The two companies will offer a turnkey business software solution that combines real-time manufacturing performance management data with Visiprise's traceability functionality, delivering information to the user through the SAP for Manufacturing dashboard.

"Offering a certified solution helps both our customers and our future prospects utilize a single platform for manufacturing performance," said Carter Johnson, VP of Strategy and Business Development at Visiprise.

Leveraging the power of SAP NetWeaver to integrate disparate technologies using preconfigured business content, users of Visiprise Manufacturing will be able to reduce the amount of time and custom integration needed to implement a global manufacturing platform. Users will be able to take advantage of plant-floor and enterprise information.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Aegis Industrial Software Corp. has finalized a partnership agreement with Sigmatek Trading Corp. to extend sales and technical support for Aegis products further into Asia, and adding manufacturing software to the Sigmatek line of electronic equipment and consumables.

Taiwan-based Sigmatek will provide sales and sales support for Aegis products in the region, including training with first line support to end users. After initial training of Sigmatek personnel, Aegis will deploy a direct technical support team based in Taiwan, specifically to assist in these efforts.

San Diego —Jurong High Tech, an EMS provider headquartered in Singapore, has implemented KIC's line of thermal process tools.

The SlimKIC 2000 with Auto-Focus optimizes the reflow oven set up for each new production run, while the KIC 24/7 continuously and automatically monitors the process to provide the profile for each part being manufactured. It also monitors the process stability and calculates the Cpk number for each part while giving instant alarm on an out of spec situation or out of control process. Process data are automatically stored and can be traced back at any time.

According to a statement, Jurong High Tech made the investment to accommodate customers' demand for lead-free manufacturing and full thermal process traceability. The company also determined that such process tools enable it to improve productivity and consistency among its several factories in Asia. The company learned about the products through KIC's distributor Krystaltech.

Breda, The Netherlands - Cobar BV, a supplier of fluxes, solder pastes and soldering materials to the electronics manufacturing industry, has been certified to the ISO/TS 16949 global automotive quality standard.

ISO/TS 16949 aligns existing American (QS-9000), German (VDA6.1), French (EAQF) and Italian (AVSQ) automotive quality systems standards within the global automotive industry, eliminating the need for multiple certifications to satisfy customer requirements.

With ISO 9001:2000, it specifies the quality system requirements for the design/development, production, installation and servicing of automotive related products.

Cobar BV was accredited to ISO 9001 in 1994 and to ISO 14001 in 1997, and is also accredited to NATO's AQAP-110.