Over 100 Million Business and Home Delivery Transactions Optimized by Cheetah's Automated, Real-Time Technology

Westlake Village, CA (April 1, 2004) — Cheetah Software Systems, Inc. the leader in real-time logistics & dispatch solutions for delivery, less-than-truckload (LTL), courier and private fleet environments, announced the broad public release of Cheetah Freight. Having successfully automated and managed over 100 million business and home delivery transactions for industry leaders such as Federated Stores, JS Logistics, and Watkins Motor Lines, Inc., Cheetah Freight trucking routing and dispatch software is now available to companies operating medium to large sized vehicle fleets involved in pick-up and delivery of parcels and freight.

Cheetah Freight is a scaleable; wireless web enabled application solution for automating the front and back-end of the supply chain resulting in increased efficiency, significantly decreased operating costs, and improved customer service. Cheetah Freight can be seamlessly integrated into existing, order-entry, warehouse (WMS), cross-dock and inventory systems for complete real-time communications accessible across the enterprise.

Today, costs of operation are spiraling out of control, while customers are more demanding than ever before. With already thin margins, trucking companies need to optimize and improve efficiencies. Until now, business owners faced the burden of implementing costly routing and tracking systems with questionable ROI.

"We were not interested in 'mechanizing' another manual process that didn't fully address route optimization and automation of fleet logistics and supply chains," said Robert M. Darroll, company President and CEO. "We quickly realized that optimized supply chains require real-time integration of fleet and workflow in order to deal with the dynamically changing conditions of the real world. While other products rushed to market with incomplete first generation solutions at best, we opted to take the time needed to develop and deliver a proven, 4th generation, complete solution that any fleet operation could afford and easily implement."

Demonstrating the problems faced by the industry, Watkins Motor Lines, Inc., one of the nation's largest less-than-truckload carriers of general commodities, faced serious but typical high cost logistics management and consumer issues. With over seven decades of experience servicing the industry, only recently has technology even begun to address some of their key problems.

"When we looked for technology solutions we had a tall order," said Dennis Michael, Vice President Information and Performance Systems, Watkins Motor Lines, Inc. "We wanted a real-time solution to our dispatching, routing and tracking needs."

Transporting freight to and from 135 locations with over 3,500 tractors and 11,500 trailers throughout the country, Watkins, like many transportation companies, needed help deciding what freight went on what trailer, how each trailer was loaded, how it was delivered and the most cost-effective routes for their drivers in order to decrease costs and increase their productivity.

"Unlike many incomplete systems that are out there, Cheetah was the first to incorporate real time routing and provide an integrated customer workflow and product logistics system with all of the necessary functions for managing dispatch, delivery and customer service in a business ready, application suite," Michael noted. "After looking at several possible integrated solutions, we chose Cheetah to pilot and, based upon the results, we plan to use this system company wide to maximize our return on investment."

Cheetah Freight's communications and logistics framework provides a data and communications infrastructure, which supports all of the components of the system. Every module exchanges data with every other module through the Cheetah Real-Time Framework.

For example, Cheetah's 'Real Time Dynamic Routing' enables a user to schedule a previously unplanned, "on demand" pickup, by entering in the customer and product information into an integrated Order Entry System. The Cheetah Router immediately recognizes the new stop, geo-codes the customer's location, determines which route to put the pick up on, automatically places the stop on the route in the appropriate sequence, updates all subsequent ETA's, sends a wireless test message to the driver informing them of the "added" stop and does all this in real-time -- in under 10 seconds with no human intervention.

Cheetah Freight takes into consideration literally hundreds of business rules, including; least miles to be driven by a vehicle, time window desired, available space on truck for the load, least impact on subsequent ETA dependent stops, driver skill level and customer to driver preference, if applicable.

Key Product Features

Automated Dispatch - Cheetah Freight runs in manual, semi-automatic or completely automatic dispatching modes. Depending on the company's unique business needs, Cheetah Freight trucking dispatch software will factor in fixed asset and variable service costs to calculate the relative expense of assigning stops to different drivers, while simultaneously considering the optimal level of customer service in relation to time windows and other preferences and advise dispatchers as to how their routing decisions affect daily profitability.

Sophisticated Route Optimization - Optimize both pickup and delivery stops. Cheetah Freight is unique in its ability to optimize a driver's route from start to finish. Using a sophisticated routing engine to sequence all the driver's stops, Cheetah will create optimized pickup and delivery stop sequences. The result is significantly improved route density and stops-per-hour performance.

Wireless Communication - Cheetah's wireless messaging exchange system enables real-time contact with your drivers. Fully automated, the system will provide simple, menu driven two-way communications with drivers.

Real-Time Tracking and Proof-Of-Delivery (POD) - Providing customer service representatives with the ability to access real-time delivery ETA's and POD's, Cheetah Freight's supply chain visibility enables dispatchers and customer service representatives to view driver location and pickup and delivery details instantly from their own route tracking screens.

Pro-Active Customer Service - Potential service failures are identified automatically and can be addressed before they become customer complaints.

E-mail notification - Critical and routine customer communications can be automated to reduce inbound call volume and customer service workload. When Cheetah E-Mail is activated, shippers and customers can be notified instantly when packages are signed for. Automated e-mail notices can also be sent to recipients with their delivery ETA's.

Customer Service System - Cheetah Service Desk enables customer service representatives to enter pick up or delivery requests into the routing system for immediate dispatch assignment. Cheetah Service Desk provides all searching and updating features required to service the customer and give them up-to-the minute information about their pickups or deliveries. This module also enables customer service representatives to create and view all messages exchanged with the drivers.

Data Interchange System - Data can be exchanged with Order Entry, Warehouse Management, Accounting and Payroll system in real time using industry standard XML, comma separated and fixed file data formats.

Website Integration - Pick up requests can be taken directly from a company's website for automated routing to the drivers. Delivery ETAs and POD information can be posted online for real-time customer access.

Digital Signature Capture and Bar Code Scanning - Using Pocket-PC based PDA's; the driver can capture signatures electronically at the point of delivery. These signatures are transmitted wirelessly to the Cheetah system in real-time and are visible on the web in less than a minute. Bar code scanning is utilized to ensure data accuracy and improve driver productivity and performance.

For a demonstration or more information on this, other Cheetah Software Systems solutions and low monthly pricing, contact Cheetah Software Systems' sales at (888) CHEETAH (243-3824) or log onto their web site at www.cheetah.com.

Cheetah Software Systems and Cheetah Freight are trademarks owned by Cheetah Software Systems, Inc., located at 200 North Westlake Blvd., Suite 200, Westlake Village, California 91362. Telephone (805) 373-7111 www.cheetah.com.