NineSigma Expands International Operations, Creates a Subsidiary in Japan

CLEVELAND, OH – October 26, 2006 – NineSigma, a leading provider of open innovation solutions to industry, has announced the formation of NineSigma Japan, a subsidiary of NineSigma, Inc. This new company has opened a sales and operations office in Tokyo, and appoints Akihiko Suwa, its co-founder, to be its President and CEO.

NineSigma has been expanding its worldwide network of corporate clients and solution providers to meet the growing global demand for managed innovation services. The company has worked with large manufacturing organizations in Japan for more than three years. This new subsidiary will help NineSigma support its customer base with accelerated delivery of world-class technical solutions.

The new NineSigma Japan office will provide full-scale operations from project selection and sales to program management and project execution. The company plans to focus on electronics, food, manufacturing, materials and automotive markets where open innovation practices are having a significant impact on time-to-market and business profitability success.

“Japan is a rapidly growing and strategic market for NineSigma,” said Paul Stiros, President and CEO of NineSigma, Inc. “This new subsidiary is the result of recent success and forecasted growth in the region. We are supporting this office with the staff and resources needed to be the leading provider of open innovation services in Japan,” Stiros exclaimed.

"Technologies required for products and solutions are becoming more diversified, sophisticated, and complex,” says Hiroshi Nishimoto, General Manager, Intellectual Asset R&D Planning Division, NEC. “We recognize that maintaining and strengthening technology and business competitiveness is more challenging if we rely solely on closed internal R&D. We position ‘open innovation’ as a major policy to overcome this challenge. We think NineSigma's access to scientists and engineers around the world and know-how to gather desired technology/development proposals are useful in order to execute open innovation," Nishimoto added.

Akihiko Suwa, President and CEO of NineSigma Japan, is very familiar with the benefits of NineSigma, having established relationships with more than 15 major Japanese clients and providing NineSigma services to them at his former position with The Japan Research Institute. Prior to his employment there, Suwa was an associate consultant for McKinsey & Company Inc. Japan. He holds a B.S. degree in Applied Physics from Northeastern University and an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other new hires for this office include Tatsuya Hoshino, Chief Operating Officer, Kazuhiro (Peter) Yokoyama, Program Manager, Hiroshi Hosaka, Program Manager, and Akiko Takahashi, Administrator.

Earlier this year, NineSigma announced the opening of a sales office in Heidelberg, Germany. Technology innovators, solution providers, and others interested in learning more about NineSigma can visit www.ninesigma.com or call NineSigma at 216-295-4800.

Contact information for the new office in Japan is:

NineSigma Japan, Inc.
Otemachi First Square East Tower 4F
1-5-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo 100-0004 Japan

Tel: +813-5219-1295
Fax: +813-5219-1495
suwa@ninesigma.com


About NineSigma
NineSigma partners with Global 1000 companies to transform their innovation capabilities by connecting them with the very best innovators from around the world. NineSigma’s proprietary process for Open Innovation enables companies to dramatically improve speed to market while lowering product development costs and reducing risk in decision making. NineSigma’s open network of innovators is the largest of its kind and spans industries, geographies, and technical disciplines. Companies such as P&G, Dupont, Kraft, and Unilever engage NineSigma to build new innovation capabilities that leverage research and innovation globally to deliver greater value to their customers. For more information visit www.ninesigma.com.