News Release

Stage-Gate Inc. Clients Selected to Share Success Stories at Prestigious Innovation Event

Innovation Success Stories

Ancaster, Ontario- July 20, 2006 – Three of Stage-Gate Inc.’s (SGI) clients have been selected to deliver best practice presentations at this year’s Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) Annual Conference. The conference, this year titled ‘Compete to Win’, draws an impressive delegation of product innovation leaders. The focus of this year’s prestigious event is what companies can do to stay ‘on top’ in a highly competitive, global marketplace.

Sean Osborne, Director of Research and Development at the Global Fluid Systems Division of automotive supplier, Cooper Standard Automotive, was selected to deliver a presentation on the competitive advantage that they achieved since introducing their integrated Product Innovation Program in 2002. Global Fluid Systems, under Sean’s leadership, has launched new products which are commanding higher margins, are getting to market faster and are giving their customers exactly what they want and need.

"We are achieving improved performance results because we approach product innovation more holistically now. We have carefully integrated five critical elements outlined in Dr. Robert Cooper’s Innovation Diamond™, including; an idea generation and capture process, a customized Stage-Gate^® Process, a Portfolio Management Process, linkages to the business strategy, and critical cultural behaviors,” reports Sean.

Larry DelPrincipe, Manager of New Product Commercialization at global healthcare products leader, Ansell Limited, was selected to deliver a presentation on the successful implementation of their customized Stage-Gate^® Process. Their goal– do it right the first time. Their approach– select a few but meaningful metrics that would help them better understand their current state and desired state and then implement a world-class plan to address the gap.

“The project was very complex. We first customized the Stage-Gate^® Process to incorporate many of our own highly regarded practices from each of our three key divisions as well as the strict regulatory and compliance requirements we must adhere to. We then designed and executed an implementation plan to ensure our new standard process was implemented successfully on a global basis. It was challenging but well worth the effort,” notes Larry.

Larry’s presentation will highlight how their strategic use of metrics, technology enablers and effective leadership paved the way to achieving new levels of product innovation performance.

David Merritt of Mellon Financial Corporation was selected to deliver a presentation on Mellon Working Capital Solutions’ success using its customized Stage-Gate^® Process to evaluate new product ideas. David will introduce the success story of Mellon Liquidity Management Service (LMS) - an efficient, short-term cash investment portal offered by Mellon Financial Markets, LLC (MFM), Mellon’s full-service institutional broker-dealer - and discuss how Mellon evaluated this new product against research-proven criteria to determine its strategic fit and growth potential. Mellon's LMS service addresses a company's need for more active management of available cash and has been one of Mellon's most successful new product launches.

Michelle Jones, Vice President of Product Management at Stage-Gate Inc. was also selected to deliver a best practice presentation. Jones, who has responsibility for product innovation under the leadership of internationally acclaimed product innovation experts, Dr. Robert G. Cooper and Dr. Scott J. Edgett, will deliver a presentation on the specialized topic of innovation performance metrics and will share how top performing companies select few, but meaningful, metrics to focus their innovation efforts.