Cahners, Aspect Development Form Manufacturing.Net

Cahners Business Information, a member of
the Reed Elsevier plc group, and Aspect Development Inc. established a new
company called Manufacturing.Net LLC that will
provide the manufacturing industry with a new electronic marketplace.

The new company is aimed at becoming the manufacturing industry’s “premiere
procurement Web site, serving all elements of the e-commerce value chain for
industrial markets,” said the parent companies.

Manufacturing.Net will unite Cahners’ content and Aspect’s maintenance,
repairs and operations (MRO) product databases, Express Catalog search
technology and e-commerce applications. Buyers of industrial products and
services will be able to
learn, find, compare and buy in a secure, open e-commerce environment, the
companies said.

“In establishing Manufacturing.Net, we have created a market-leading exchange
for
procurement in the manufacturing marketplace,” said Romesh Wadhwani, Aspect
chairman and chief executive officer. “Over 55 percent of the cost of manufacturing products is
taken up in MRO expenditures. Our new company will supply information on
millions of standard parts and products in an open environment.”

The new company will be built around Manufacturing.net, a Web site Cahners
launched in 1996 to provide content and community to the manufacturing
sector. As a result of the joint venture between Cahners and Aspect
Development, e-commerce applications, search technology and product databases
will be added to the site.

Together Cahners and Aspect will fund the company as well as provide content,
brands, software, hardware and other equipment. The new company will maintain
offices in the Boston and Philadelphia areas.

Currently, Manufacturing.Net gets more than 1 million visits monthly, has
over 220,000 registered users and has more than 360 advertisers.