Kaba Workforce Solutions Launches Highly Anticipated B-COMM Version 7.0

October 10, 2006; 08:53 AM
Kaba Workforce Solutions (previously known as Kaba Benzing America), the North American operating subsidiary of Kaba Holding AG, Switzerland, a global provider of enterprise-class Workforce Management solutions, announced it has launched the latest version of its time and labor communications software, B-COMM 7.0.

B-COMM 7.0 is a proprietary technology designed as three separate solutions to compliment and enhance enterprise systems by providing the communications link necessary for automated and validated Time and Labor data collection. B-COMM 7.0 is a certified software that links Kaba time collection and shop floor terminals to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as, but not limited to, Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP. B-COMM 7.0 communicates via XML messages and efficiently and seamlessly manages the communications stream providing a secure, robust bi-directional communication channel with PeopleSoft Time and Labor™, Oracle Time and Labor™ and mySAP ERP™ systems.

“We are very pleased that we can now offer all of our partners, and their customers, enhanced support, scalability and functionality with version 7.0 of B-COMM for time and labor,” commented Chief Executive Officer, John Edwards of Kaba Workforce Solutions. “Our goal is to continually develop our offerings in alignment with our partner’s roadmap, allowing our common customer bases to more effectively realize a measurable return on their ERP investment.”

About the Technology

B-COMM 7.0 is designed with J2EE architecture and is highly scalable, offering custom configurations specific to each of Kaba Workforce Solutions’ customers and ERP partners. The technology’s JSF based, graphical presentation architecture offers a highly intuitive interface and user-friendly prompt and response operation between time and labor terminals and enterprise systems. The technology records clock-in and clock-out time stamps, breaks and meals, and job transfer times. B-COMM 7.0 can also record job transfer data with detailed task information and records elapsed time entries such as vacation time, sick day, jury duty and holidays. In addition, B-COMM supports project labor reporting against tasks, chargeable projects and expenditure types, and data continues to be collected and validated even when the enterprise system is not in operation.

Utilizing JSF and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), B-COMM 7.0’s component based architecture offers a full spectrum of solutions for the simplest data collection environments to environments that use more robust systems for Workforce Optimization. The technology’s modular design may be enhanced to offer additional workforce management functionality such as time and attendance, labor data reporting and labor costing.

System requirements for running B-COMM 7.0 are industry-standard components. B-COMM for PeopleSoft Time and Labor was released in August 2006, B-COMM for Oracle Time and Labor will be launched fourth quarter 2006 and B-COMM for SAP will be released by second quarter 2007.

About Kaba Workforce Solutions

Kaba Workforce Solutions, Inc., is a subsidiary of $900 million Kaba Holding AG, Switzerland (SWISS: KABN), a worldwide leader in enterprise-class Workforce Management solutions. From time and attendance, workforce scheduling, analytics, employee self-service and data collection solutions for SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft/JD Edwards, Infor / SSA Global Technologies, Cincom Manufacturing Business Solutions and other leading enterprise business systems, Kaba offers an integrated suite of Time and Attendance, Workforce Scheduling, Shop-Floor Data Collection, ESS / MSS and Analytics. Clients include such industry leaders as Kraft Foods, N.A., BMW, General Electric, and Goodrich Corporation, amongst others. Kaba can be contacted in North America at 954.416.1720; website is www.kaba-benzing-usa.com.