Deneb Robotics, Inc. announces General Availability of Deneb/QUESTVersion 5.1

Major enhancements in Optimization and Fluids Simulation Analysis

TROY, Mich., February 23, 2000--Deneb Robotics, Inc, a Dassault Systemes (Nasdaq: DASTY) company, announces general availability of Deneb/ QUEST Version 5.1-This release provides significant improvements in optimization and fluids simulation analysis. With Deneb/ QUEST V5.1, Deneb continues to improve upon the discrete event simulation environment that helps companies develop a complete Digital Manufacturing environment for modeling, analyzing, validating and visualizing facility layout and process flow.

Utilities and Consumer Goods companies will benefit greatly from new enhancements to Deneb/QUEST 5.1 from Deneb Robotics. It gives engineers the ability to analyze fluid throughput based on flow rate. A fluid process template allows users to simulate both fluids and discrete parts in the same model. This template is especially ideal for companies who produce high volume metals and plastics processing. Deneb/QUEST users can experiment with the fluid flow, routing, and processing methodology in order to meet production throughput. The model can also help determine whether or not the correct amount of fluid is going into a fluid mixture with fluid history charting capabilities.

Deneb/QUEST 5.1 provides additional benefits through the incorporation of OptQuest by OptTek Systems, Inc. Industrial engineers can use the intelligent search algorithms in OptQuest to make the automated Design of Experiments process more efficient. Designed specifically for optimizing discrete event simulation, this optimization package quickly determines a correct combination of variable values within known constraints and restrictions that will satisfy production objectives in the QUEST model.

Managers are able to prioritize tasks using the new Interrupt Logic function included with 5.1. As a "hot job" arrives, an operator's standard labor logic is simply preempted to process the high priority parts. Interruptions in standard daily procedures happen quite often in the real world, and can be easily modeled without tedious programming efforts.

"One of the major efforts in Deneb/QUEST 5.1 has been to increase the ease with which very detailed modeling can be performed and analyzed," said Bob Brown, President of Deneb Robotics. "For example, interrupt mechanisms provide for such detailed behaviors as labor preemption, and detailed sub-states provide greater resolution on statistical output."

"Deneb/QUEST 5.1 provides users with a solution to further analyze and optimize the throughput of the line, factory or even the extended production environment, including the suppliers," said Pascal Lecland, Executive Vice-President of Research and Development at Deneb Robotics. "With the enhancements in this release, Deneb/QUEST continues to grow as the premier discrete event simulation environment tool."

Statistical reporting in Deneb/QUEST 5.1 has been greatly enhanced with the inclusion of detailed sub-states. This function allows the user to access statistical information in greater detail, resulting in a better understanding of the process being analyzed. Standard statistics may report a high machine utilization, where the statistical breakout may reveal the machine is spending an extremely high percentage of time during setup and not during the actual part processing. This additional information provides the necessary insight for uncovering the real problems.

Deneb/QUEST 5.1 also contains an additional enhancement to define worker daily scheduling. Managers are able to apply logic to when a break can be taken or when the end of a shift is reached, and apply this knowledge to more than one schedule at the same time.

Deneb/QUEST analyzes and justifies production costs and capital investments, and monitors the value of work-in-process and ROI. Users gain greater confidence with every release that through more efficient and robust simulation modeling and analysis, their results will be improved productivity and profitability of manufacturing systems.

This announcement demonstrates Deneb's commitment to continued improvement of process-centric, integrated solutions for all its customers and partners.