Uniroyal Chemical Ltd.and Fisher-Rosemount Systems Win Microsoft Technical Innovations in Manufacturing Awards

CHICAGO, March 11, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today presented Leonardo medals for outstanding Technical Innovations in Manufacturing (TIM) to Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. and Fisher-Rosemount Systems at National Manufacturing Week.

The TIM awards are presented annually to companies and Microsoft Solution Providers that demonstrate progressive solutions using Microsoft® technology.

“Using the Windows NT® technology and the OLE for Process Control (OPC) specification, Fisher-Rosemount Systems designed a distributed control system that allows real-time information to be directly routed from the plant floor to the desktops of the engineers and production managers,” said Andy Chatha, president of Automation Research Corp., a manufacturing analyst group. “With the business and technology benefits that Uniroyal has achieved, this system will have a major impact in the manufacturing marketplace.”

Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. in Ontario, Canada, produces more than 50 million pounds of specialty products annually, including crop protectants, rubber additives, oil additives and synthetic oils.

Uniroyal implemented Fisher-Rosemount Systems’ DeltaV, enabling faster response to product demand, improved process quality controls, increased internal product analysis and a 60 percent reduction in operation training time – with eight operators trained on the new system in just eight hours. Overall, the implementation is estimated to have saved up to 30 percent over comparable system implementations.

“We see the future of our success to be largely dependent on the management and interpretation of data,” said Mark Garnett, an instrumentation and control superintendent for Uniroyal Chemical Ltd. “DeltaV and the Internet/intranet will assist us in our quest for information and allow us to make the data readily available to anyone in our company, wherever they may be. We especially see the ability to use intranets as an important technology that will offer easy, low-cost information access.”

Brooke Banbury-Masland, worldwide manufacturing industry manager for Microsoft, said entries for this year’s TIM awards came from numerous segments of the manufacturing industry.

“The range of solutions, from process control to enterprise resource planning, demonstrates the applicability of Windows NT Server in the manufacturing enterprise,” Banbury-Masland said. “It was a close contest, but Uniroyal and Fisher-Rosemount have implemented an innovative solution that translates Microsoft technology into clear business benefits.”

Uniroyal’s solution is Fisher-Rosemont Systems’ DeltaV scalable process system, which uses numerous Microsoft technologies, including native 32-bit Windows NT technology, Microsoft Foundation Classes, Unicode, the Windows® 95 operating system and Windows Explorer. Support for OPC is also built into the DeltaV product.

The award was presented at Managing Automation’s Automation Hall of Fame banquet. Entries were evaluated on their ability to use technology to improve a manufacturing or design process, enhance a product or provide benefits to users. The judges considered the size and scope of the solution in the context of the company, Microsoft vs. Microsoft Solution Provider

content, documented business-process improvement, and tangible return on investment plus savings.

The Leonardo medal selection committee consisted of Tony Friscia, president, Advanced Manufacturing Research; Andy Chatha, president, Automation Research Corp.; Ted Rybeck, president, Benchmarking Partners; Dan Miklovic, director of business operations applications, Gartner Group Inc.; Harry Tse, director of inter/enterprise applications, manufacturing technologies and practices, Yankee Group; and Julie Fraser, director, Industry Directions.

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