MILFORD, OH; FEBRUARY 24, 2004 --- Sears Roebuck and Company of Canada has named the Murray Snow Thrower as the recipient of the company's Chairman's Award. The internal Sears award acknowledges Murray's Snow Thrower for innovation for the 2004 snow season.

The Snow Thrower is the result of a recent collaborative product development program between Murray Inc. and ITI Manta --- the test, analysis, and design business of International TechneGroup Incorporated (ITI). The companies worked together to develop, evaluate, test, and implement new product enhancements including a new steering and drive design making the Snow Thrower easier to operate. ITI Manta's services ranged from Concept Design and Validation to Prototype Build and Testing, along with related Product Development activities. ITI Manta created and evaluated various design alternatives and implemented a patented clutch unit into the new product.

"The Murray Snow Thrower program was driven by our Systems Engineering / Analysis Leads Design (SE/ALD™) product development process," explained ITI Manta President, James Sherlock. "SE/ALD includes the analysis of concept CAD models in the very early stages of product development allowing multiple design alternatives to be evaluated with the best approach selected from the outset of detail design. As you can imagine this significantly accelerates product development time while cutting costs associated with multi-prototype development and testing," continued Sherlock. "Murray is a shining example of how organizations who take a proactive approach to product development are rewarded with innovative world-class products and market leadership."

"The Snow Thrower program has by all accounts been a tremendous success," said Jennifer Thompson, Category Manager for Murray, Inc. "Today it is not merely a question of employing computer-aided tools but moreover leveraging and utilizing the data in order to make the best decisions as early in the process as possible. This allows engineering and manufacturing resources to focus on producing products designed to meet and exceed customer requirements. We will continue our mission to deliver innovative superior products through the application of ITI Manta's Systems Engineering / Analysis Leads Design methodology."

About ITI
With global headquarters in Milford, Ohio (USA), ITI is the world's leading provider of consulting, software products and related integration services that enable clients to dramatically improve their product and manufacturing process development capabilities. ITI is the world's largest independent provider of product data integration products and services. The Company's Concurrent Product and Manufacturing Process Development (CPPD®) tools and technology shorten product development time cycles and reduce product and manufacturing process development costs.