Thales Nederland selects InPlan Engineering planning System from Orbotech

Brussels, Belgium, – January 03, 2005 – Orbotech S.A., the European subsidiary of Orbotech Ltd., today announced the purchase made by Thales Nederland B.V. of InPlan™ automated manufacturing process planning software for bare printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing.

Mr. Sipke Van Tuinen, Manager Bare Boards and Substrates, at Thales Nederland Plant, commented: “We wanted to accurately calculate prototype costs during the R&D stage, and create a traveler during the production process. These requirements led us to choose InPlan, which provides us with an automatic, integrated solution”.

“We are proud to have been selected by Thales Nederland for their process planning needs”, said Mr. Jacob Azran, President of Orbotech S.A. “InPlan and its cost engineering abilities give our customers an infrastructure that creates a competitive advantage and helps build a complete, automated, front-end solution.”

InPlan, developed by Frontline PCB Solutions™, an Orbotech Valor company, is an automated rules-driven process planning system that speeds up cycle time and reduces costs, supporting a 'plan anywhere, build anyplace' environment.  InPlan™ process planning is based on electronic customer & manufacturing specifications. Its rules engine dynamically generates the BOM (Bill of materials), traveler and CAM instructions -all revision controlled. InPlan can transform process planning into a decision-making stage, in which rules and spec-driven information help to automate time-consuming and error-prone tasks. It is also integrated with CAM and ERP.

Thales Nederland is the world’s leading supplier of Naval Combat Management Systems and radar equipment.  The Company’s Bare Board and Substrates department has broad experience and competence that enables it to offer effective support in the development of products, including high complexity or prototype. This form of concurrent engineering in close cooperation with the customer stimulates a quick and efficient development process. BB&S has extendedly proven to be a reliable, involved and capable partner. Using InPlan will give a new dimension in the costing and manufacturing process to its customers and its internal organization.   For more information about Thales Nederland, please visit www.thales-nederland.nl