January 8, 2004  |  Imaginestics receives National Science Foundation grant to conduct important manufacturing research

Purdue Research Park, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A - Imaginestics, a world leader in knowledge-based systems for the engineering and manufacturing industry, announced today that it has been awarded a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research grant. This will enable the company to develop a prototype of a software tool to dynamically guide product design teams with process configuration for parts and tooling and to perform cost analysis. A prototype of the software architecture to be developed will extend across several manufacturing process verticals such as casting, plastics, forgings, stampings, and composites. This research will help bridge the continuing and growing gap between early product design, which constitutes 80% of the manufacturing cost, and designers' ability to understand and influence manufacturing cost drivers at a time when strategic outsourcing is rapidly outpacing the economy. With the fast pace of global outsourcing, designers' knowledge of the manufacturing process and its cost variables is greatly being reduced, compounding the problem of their understanding the actual manufacturing costs related to parts and tooling.

"We are greatly honored that NSF considers this research critical to our manufacturing future. Our initial work in this area helped us gain very important momentum and proof of its impact in manufacturing," said Nainesh Rathod, President & CEO of Imaginestics. "Our work in the manufacturing process, tooling, and its relative costs will revolutionize the way products are designed."

About Imaginestics
Imaginestics is a privately-held software and services company founded in December 2002. It is emerging as the leader in knowledge-based systems for the manufacturing and life sciences industry. Imaginestics' mission is to unleash the power of existing engineering and manufacturing systems through an integrated product suite that taps companies' past and present knowledge and optimizes their future development. Imaginestics' product suite includes, i-compare, i-migrate, i-config, i-parts and i-advisor.