Chairman's Message

Introduction
The problems of the financial industry and their economic repercussions had a major impact on the metal distribution and processing industries. Since mid-2009, metal service centers have experienced a recovery that has been uneven across market segments, with a modest pickup in the flat-rolled market and a more robust recovery in machinery, specialty metals, plate processing, energy and Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG).

Operations
With the business slowdown that followed in 2008, at Invera we redoubled our efforts to substantially expand the functionality of STRATIX and extend our metal-specific competency to cloud computing architecture, SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) operations and mobile computing. This year will mark the culmination of our efforts with the release of our INVEX line of products for mobile computing, supporting Apple's mobile devices. We also revised and upgraded nearly every internal process for product implementation, training and support, while developing a comprehensive set of training aids and conversion tools for migration to STRATIX. To keep up with our customer demand for STRATIX, we have integrated additional training and support staff, while expanding our geographic reach to several new countries.

STRATIX
STRATIX currently operates at companies who have a complete and comprehensive set of product lines and perform single and multi-step processing with a wide range of metals including carbon steels, specialty alloys, aluminum, stainless, bronze, red metals and titanium. STRATIX is operational in locations spread across the USA, Canada, Mexico, Austria, Belgium, Dubai, England, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Portugal, Singapore & Taiwan. For 2012, there are plans to add additional STRATIX users in the US, UK, Mexico, Canada, and Norway.

INVEX & Cloud Computing with Apple
We are pleased to announce INVEX, our new line of web-based service center products that are fully integrated, in real-time, with STRATIX. These operate seamlessly on traditional web-browsers (PC, Laptop, Mac) and/or mobile devices like the Apple iPad and iPhone.  INVEX enables Metal Service Centers to provide eCommerce and Web Customer Service functions to their customers. 

INVEX is a plug-and-play application and allows metal service centers to create an immediate internet presence with no software programming requirements. INVEX has built-in features that permit a metal company to customize and brand their presence, and has full facilities for security and control of user access. INVEX can be downloaded as a standard native iPad app from the iTunes app store (http://itunes.com). 

For full Customer Web Service, the metal company can  enable customers, outside sales representatives and customer service staff to quickly, easily and securely access order status, shipment information, test certificates, invoices, proof of delivery documents and self-manage customer consigned stock and customer stocking programs.

STRATIX-WiFi on Apple Devices
The STRATIX WiFi functionality on traditional shop floor wireless devices is available for inventory movement tracking & management, physical inventory counts, inventory pick recording, and transport/shipping logistics such as delay reasons, load substitutions, and load verification functions. This complete suite of STRATIX WiFi functions is being made available for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch products.

Multi-Company Operations
In 2011 we released STRATIX/MULTICO, a new product to improve the productivity of customers who operate multiple independent companies on STRATIX. Options are provided to run these companies in a single database or multiple databases, on one or multiple systems. This includes a comprehensive, real-time consolidated stock view showing available stock across all companies within the Enterprise. All inter-company transactions for order fulfillment and stock replenishment are fully automated, to comply with the accounting independence of each company within the Enterprise.

Optimized Plate Processing
We released, in early 2012, a new product called STRATIX/SigmaNEST which seamlessly integrates STRATIX with the SigmaNEST plate optimization software, eliminating all double entry procedures and transactions to maintain two separate systems. For plate processing service centers there are substantial benefits in accuracy, time-savings, inventory management control and efficiency. SigmaNEST from SigmaTEK is a market-leading plate optimization product with a wide international user base.

Customer Specified Extensions (CSX)
In 2012, additional customer flexibility options are being added to STRATIX. With the STRATIX/CSX product our customers can independently develop Customer Specified Extensions such as user defined fields, integrated external applications (e.g. external price book), in a seamless fashion without affecting the core STRATIX product. This will enable our customers to implement their confidential 'competitive edge features' utilizing the entire STRATIX product, and not be locked out of deploying future STRATIX upgrades because of customization.

ON-DEMAND Software-as-a-Service
One of the rapidly growing segments of our business is our ON-DEMAND service.  This service allows our customers to use Invera software products via the Net with software and data hosted at world class 'lights-out' external server faculties and replicated at the Invera Technology Center for full business continuity. Currently, over 50 of our Customers’ locations in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore & Dubai utilize our ON-DEMAND service.

Summary
Our passion over the last 35 years has been to build an enduring company where people are motivated to create the best-in-class and market-leading software solutions and services for the Metal industry, keeping our customers at the heart of our business while preserving our financial strength to maintain a long term commitment to our customers.  As always, we are fortunate that our customers remain the most profitable and well-managed in the business and we thank them for their continued confidence and trust in our company.

Respectfully,