MKS Inc. and its partner ILC PROSTEP have announced they have provided Continental Automotive Systems, a worldwide leading technology partner to the automotive industry, with an integration between MKS's application lifecycle management platform, MKS Integrity, and mySAP PLM (Product Lifecycle Management). This integration enables a vital process link connecting software engineering to production planning and control, allowing project managers to automate and monitor the flow of process from development to production.

MKS and ILC PROSTEP have integrated Continental Automotive Systems's software engineering workflows, housed in MKS Integrityùthe company's corporate standard for application lifecycle managementùwith production planning and control processes housed in mySAP PLM.

On demand, mySAP PLM generates development requests and transfers them to MKS Integrity which releases the completed module for testing or production. Process automation has removed the need for manual deployment of software releases, and enabled complete visibility into projects for Continental team leaders, allowing the organization to plan more effectively and utilize resources more efficiently.

The MKS-SAP-integration was developed using SAP NetWeaver and has been certified under the 'POWERED BY NetWeaver Program.'

"ILC PROSTEP brought to this integration effort a depth of experience with software engineering processes in embedded systems and the automotive sector coupled with SAP integration competence. Together we were able to provide a solution that would address the complexity of Continental Automotive Systems," says Holger Schmiedefeldt, Director Business Development, MKS GMBh"

"By linking MKS Integrity with mySAP PLM we have an integrated automated process now from the software development to the production planning and controlling. We gain time savings, security and transparency," says Dr. Thomas Knapp, Manager Software Tools und Verification Competence Center Control Systems Software, Continental Automotive Systems. "This integration allows us to save significant time in the approval and release process, and our next step will be to share the planning data in mySAP PLM with MKS Integrity, and extend the integration to link MKS Integrity's requirements management capabilities with mySAP PLM."

About MKS
MKS is the premier provider of application lifecycle management solutions for the global 1000. MKS's solution spans from requirements management to deployment providing customers with enhanced development productivity, visibility over processes, and improved IT controls for regulatory compliance. MKS's software is distinguished by its single architecture and deep integration of features delivering collaboration throughout the development lifecycle, rapid implementation and low total cost of ownership. Founded in 1984, MKS serves more than 10,000 customers in countries across the world. Whether through deployment of MKS's solution strategically on an enterprise scale, or by leveraging individual components to solve project-level challenges, our customers can use MKS's software to enable higher levels of process maturity, better manage global development activity and safeguard their most critical business applications and software assets. Under its widely known MKS Toolkit« brand, MKS also provides UNIX-Windows co-existence and system administration that significantly cut development and administrative costs and reduce time to market, while enabling enhanced performance. More information about MKS can be found at http://www.mks.com or by calling 1-800-265-2797 (US & Canada), +49-711-351775-0 (Germany), +44-1483-733900 (United Kingdom) and 1-519-884-2251 (Rest of World).

About ILC PROSTEP
ILC PROSTEP deploys SAP tools and technologies to enable customers to optimize their product development processes. In addition to providing consulting and implementation services for mySAP PLM applications, the company develops its own advanced product solutions. ILC PROSTEP's proven applications and innovative integration solutions allow organizations to model the entire product development process. The unique process and technology expertise of ILC PROSTEP have made it the partner of choice of customers, such as, Continental, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, and ZF. http://www.ilc-prostep.de

About Continental Automotive Systems
With systems, components, and engineering services for intelligent automotive safety, comfort, chassis, powertrain performance as well as embedded telematics and hands-free communication systems, Continental Automotive Systems has secured itself a top position as a reliable partner of ll major car manufacturers worldwide. Automotive Systems is a division of the Continental Corporation, a leading automotive supplier of brake systems, chassis components, powertrain controls, vehicle electronics, tires, as well as technical elastomers. In 2006 the corporation realized sales of approximately Euros 14.9 billion. At present it has a worldwide workforce of around 85,000.