Press Releases   MSA in the News (Reprints)

RMDAS™ Ferrous Scrap Price Index Now Available on MetalPrices.com PITTSBURGH, PA - February 16, 2007 - Management Science Associates, Inc. (MSA) announced today that its RMDAS™ Ferrous Scrap Price Index is now available to subscribers of MetalPrices.com, a leading metal industry price and news service. "We are pleased to work with MetalPrices.com to add value for their subscribers while increasing exposure to this important scrap price index throughout the steel and metals community," said Ralph Pinkert, Business Development Director for MSA. The RMDAS Ferrous Scrap Price Index prices, which are published on the 20th of each month, are provided for several widely traded scrap commodities, representing the aggregated regional spot market prices for "prompt" new production industrial scrap generated by the metalworking industry, shredded "obsolescent" scrap, and heavy melting "cut" scrap sold to domestic steel producers each month. Prices for these grades are reported for RMDAS' North Midwest, North Central/East, and South regions, along with a Total U.S. region. "At MetalPrices.com, we are continually looking to add value and content for our subscribers. MSA's ferrous scrap index prices are an excellent addition to the list of metals we report," said David Behr, President, MetalPrices.com. Along with the RMDAS index price tables for the specified regions, MetalPrices.com also provides charts and historical price tables of the RMDAS indices for subscribers to review. In addition to publication on MetalPrices.com, the RMDAS Ferrous Scrap Price Index has also been published in Recycling Today magazine and on RecyclingToday.com since May 2006. The RMDAS Ferrous Scrap Price Index is transaction-based, providing weighted-average, aggregated regional "spot market" prices generated from RMDAS participants' actual scrap purchase order data, representing a significant percentage of ferrous scrap purchased in the U.S. "This index enables companies in the steel, recycling, foundry, manufacturing, and metalworking industries to now enter into sound formula-based, longer-term purchase and sales agreements, and/or for use as a raw material surcharge mechanism," Mr. Pinkert explained. RMDAS, which stands for Raw Material Data Aggregation Service™, was developed by MSA in late 2003 with steel producers. The full service provides its program participants with actual, transaction-based, weighted-average, aggregated scrap price and volume information on all commodities purchased by the participants. Participants can do comparative analysis on the data and create a wide variety of charts, graphs, and data views to benchmark performance, identify buying/selling opportunities, and to support SOx compliance. Currently, MSA has contracts with a significant number of EAF mini-mills and integrated steel producers in North America, who provide their actual purchase order data from over 60 melting locations, representing well over 55% of the total purchased scrap consumed in the United States each month. Founded in 1963, MSA is an international leader in decision-support analysis software and business automation systems. MSA specializes in data management, business analysis, information systems management, and business continuity and disaster recovery services. MSA has more than 40 years of experience in providing secure data collection, management and analysis, including forecasting, for individual companies and entire industries. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, MSA is a privately-held company employing more than 800 individuals in its offices throughout the world, including: New York; Chicago; Atlanta; High Point, N.C.; Cardiff, Wales; Shanghai, China; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. MSA's Metals and Advanced Manufacturing Division has been providing complete turnkey computer systems, process control services, purchasing and blending optimization models, engineering and management services to the metals and other process industries since 1982. MetalPrices.com is a subscription service delivering metal prices and news via the Internet. Launched in 1995, the service includes optional live feeds for the LME, NYMEX, COMEX, and Shanghai Futures Exchange. All subscriptions include current spot prices, graphs, and historical data tables for 430 other metals including, scrap stainless, copper and aluminum, nickel alloys, ferroalloys, and primary and secondary ingot. News articles include a five-times daily analysis direct from the trading floor and industry related stories organized by type of metal.