Process industry software supplier Aspentech moved to quash rumours
of financial ill-health and set out a bold strategy for future
growth at its Aspenworld user conference in Washington this
week.
Aspentech has a number of high-profile process industry customers,
including Shell, Dow Chemical, Goodyear, BP and Monsanto.
Aspenworld had been rife with talk that the firm's life expectancy
was limited. One delegate, a petrol company IT engineer, said,
"People are saying that Aspentech will go belly-up, that it is
wasting money and will be acquired before long."
David McQuillin, Aspentech's president and chief executive, said
that recent announcements of losses and lay-offs were designed to
create stability and change the company's organisational model to
equip it for the future. "The rumours that have been going around
are false," he said.
Aspentech, whose portfolio includes process simulation software and
specialised enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, has debts
of $150m (£97m) and has only made a profit in one of the past four
years. AMR Research said recently that the company needs to regain
profit-making performance or face takeover.
During keynote speeches to 2,000 delegates McQuillin and Aspentech
founder Larry Evans set out their vision of the company's role in
helping the process industries to make huge savings through
real-time linking of manufacturing processes with ERP systems.
McQuillin said process industry companies waste huge amounts of
money "by making the wrong stuff at the wrong time and carrying too
much inventory".
He cited figures from ARC Consulting which predicted that,
worldwide, the process industries have the opportunity to make up
to $500bn in savings a year.
Evans said that linking plant operations to commercial operations
will be "the next big wave", dubbing it "enterprise optimisation
management