Siemens Energy & Automation recognized five U.S. companies for outstanding technological leadership during the 2008 Siemens Automation Summit in Chicago.
Raj Batra, vice president of Siemens automation and motion division, presented Customer Excellence awards to Ramón Román, engineering business unit manager, Bacardi, San Juan, Puerto Rico; J.C. Harrison, electrical engineering manager, Roeslein & Associates, St. Louis; Greg Kemper, chief electrical engineer, Lehigh Cement, Union Bridge, Mo.; Richard Smith, engineering section head, machinery controls, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine, Charlottesville, Va.; and William Pels, vice president of business development, Steam Plant Systems, Schenectady, N.Y.
The Siemens Customer Excellence Award recognizes companies that are using our innovative technologies and products to achieve operational and business goals, said Batra. We applaud their commitment to customer satisfaction and working with Siemens to find the right solutions in an increasingly competitive market.
Presented annually, the Siemens Customer Excellence Award honors Siemens Solution Partners, OEMs, integrators and end users that have used Siemens technology to implement solutions that meet their customers needs for improved production capabilities, real-time information and reduced energy consumption, as well as enabling their customers to save time and money.
Roeslein & Associates partnership with Siemens is less than three years old, explained Rick Myers, director, industrial business development, at Siemens. But this relationship is strong. They have taken advantage of our global infrastructure and increased their customer confidence and their business.
Lehigh Cement is part of a global organization that employs 65,000 people. Its one of the leading producers of cement in North America. Lehigh modernized by using a variety of products, including PCS 7, said Myers. The plant has motors, drives and vision systems, all supplied by Siemens. This is a great sustainability story. Lehigh reduced power consumption by 19% and decreased labor by 18%.
Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine provides machinery control and monitoring systems on the national security cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard, which has recognized Northrop Grummans work, said Myers. Siemens products include S7 400 H PLCs and WinCC for HMI/SCADA. Infrastructure products and SIMATIC IT software also are used for simulation and testing.
Bacardi is the largest privately held spirits company in the world. It transitioned from APACS DCS to PCS 7. A cogeneration project used PCS 7 and Siemens Totally Integrated Automation concept with Smart MCC (motor control centers). An additional project addressed conversion of the older APACS systems to the PCS 7 OS. Since the successful commissioning, projects are underway to replace more hardware, said Myers. A three-year ROI was planned for this project, but ROI goals will be reached in half of this time.
Steam Plant Systems won an award for the work it did at Ellis Hospital, a 368-bed facility that needed to update a 30-year-old boiler plant and make safety repairs. Windows NT 4.0 was the operating system, making upgrades of the out-of-date control system difficult, explained Myers. Steam Plant Systems was able to install PCS 7/APACS OS on two computers without interrupting steam flow. Ellis has saved more than 5,800 staff hours and decreased energy usage, said Myers. The hospital is also 18% more energy-efficient than in 2005.
Nominations for the Customer Excellence Award were open to Siemens Solution Partners, along with end users and OEM manufacturing companies that currently use Siemens technology. A panel of Siemens senior and product management representatives selected the recipients of the awards. We chose the winners based on the innovative use of Siemens technology and the impact it has had on their business, explained Myers.
In addition to the winners, this years finalists included Bayer CropScience, Institute, W.V.; Brock Solutions, Kitchener, Ontario; Buzzi Unicern, Festus, Mo.; Cybertrol Engineering, Minneapolis; Innovative Peening Systems, Norcross, Ga.; Interstate Paper, Riceboro, Ga.; O-I, Perrysburg, Ohio; Premier Automation, Monroeville, Pa.; Shaw Industries CIMS Group, Dalton, Ga.; SIM Products, Shumway, Ill.; Spire Solar, Bedford, Mass.; Dow Chemical, Midland, Mich.; and Youngquist Brothers, Fort Myers, Fla.
