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For Immediate Release

Contact:
Roy Kok
781-471-1147
rkok@arcweb.com

ARC Introduces Supplier Selection Service and Hosted Tools

Simplifies Supplier Selection Process, Creates Consensus, and Helps Ensure Fact-Based Decisions

Dedham, Massachusetts; October 15, 2012:  ARC Advisory Group, the leading global research and advisory firm for manufacturing, industry, and infrastructure, announces the release of ARC STAR (Solutions That Accelerate Results), a domain-specific supplier selection service.  This on-line, cloud-based, hosted solution provides easy-to-use tools that define a process and selection criteria for making strategic supplier selections.  ARC clients can now make use of ARC’s proven supplier selection process, in an on-line, hosted, and guided environment.  ARC STAR will be available for most key enterprise, automation, and manufacturing software application areas.  At this release, ARC STAR is available for Advanced Process Control (APC), Analytics for Operational Excellence, Batch Control Systems, Collaborative Production Management/MES (for Discrete and Process Industries), and Distributed Control Systems (DCS).

ARC STAR – Supplier Selection Service guides users through a step-by-step process selecting and evaluating suppliers and their products against specific application and cultural requirements.  The process guides the user through the project and team definition, reviewing and editing ARC-provided selection criteria and supplier questions, weighing selection criteria, developing a supplier Request for Information (RFI) list, evaluating supplier responses, and developing a final ranking of RFI results.  ARC STAR then fully documents the process and results for management review and approval.  ARC STAR helps ensure inclusive, fact-based, impartial supplier evaluations and selections, free of the user bias issues that typically hamper these activities.  In addition, ARC estimates that ARC STAR can reduce the cost and effort of a supplier selection process by well over 50 percent.

“ARC STAR is a new area of value for ARC end user clients.  We have been involved in many custom supplier selection processes over the past 25 years and have used this expertise to create a simple, cost-effective service, for others to use,” says ARC President Andy Chatha.  “The ARC STAR offering will expand from the current six domains to over a dozen in the coming months.”
For more information on the ARC STAR Supplier Selection Service, please visit www.arcweb.com/services/supplier-selection/.

About ARC Advisory Group:

ARC Advisory Group is the leading market research and advisory firm for industry and infrastructure. Business and IT executives around the world tell us that our coverage of technology from automation and business systems to product and asset lifecycle management, supply chain management, operations management, controls and control elements, makes ARC the “go-to” firm for their companies. ARC analysts have the industry knowledge and first-hand experience to help clients find the best answers. For more information, contact ARC Advisory Group, 781-471-1000, www.arcweb.com.