Siemens announced the winners of its ninth annual Customer Excellence Awards during its 2014 Automation Summit, hosted at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Since 2006, these awards have recognized achievements of Siemens’ customers and partners who exemplify using Siemens technology to generate superior business results.
“Our 2014 winners have taken innovation, industrial productivity and resource efficiency to new levels, demonstrating the power of the Siemens portfolio to ensure competitiveness,” says Raj Batra, President Industry Automation Division. “These companies capitalized upon the significant research and development Siemens has put into its products and solutions. By deploying these scalable automation and drive technologies into their businesses, our customers are yielding solid returns on their investments, driving a manufacturing recovery in the U.S. and demonstrating a picture of what the future of manufacturing will look like,” Batra added.
Siemens 2014 Customer Excellence Award winners include:
Marvair, Division of Airxcel, Inc., with Prism Systems. A leading manufacturer of wall-mounted air conditioners, heat pumps, ventilation equipment, thermostats and controllers, Marvair has been working with Siemens for almost 12 years. The company uses numerous Siemens products, including Simatic S7-1212, KTP600 and TIA Portal V12. In partnership with Prism Systems, the company created a custom HVAC control application and operator interface for cell shelters for a major US telecommunications company. The solution resulted in decreased energy costs, emergency ventilation and connectivity to telecom shelters and the assurance of continued operation of these shelters in the event of a utility power failure.
Onyx Specialty Papers, Inc. A manufacturer of highly engineered papers for technically-demanding applications, Onyx¹ products can be found in laminate floors, countertops and furniture for kitchen and bath, signs, labels and banners, fine arts paper and mat board and automotive parts. A long-time Siemens technology user, Onyx migrated their legacy APACS DCS systems to a modern platform to drive process and performance improvements. The two-phase project included the installation of PCS 7 APACS OS, as well as DP I/O Bus modules and converting the system to Simatic S7-400 controllers and standard PCS 7 using APL. Onyx now realizes reduced non-value-added wait times and idle-cycle frequency on high-speed equipment, saving maintenance costs and increasing flexibility for future equipment optimization.
RedViking. Founded in 1981, RedViking designs and builds manufacturing and testing solutions for the aerospace, automotive, off-highway and defense industries. The company is recognized as the US leader in flexible powertrain test systems, with centers located across North America. Challenged by the need to increase flexibility to change production lines to meet multiple vehicle variants, RedViking turned to Siemens for supervisory control, minimizing line interruptions and improving ergonomics and safety. From a testing solutions perspective, the RedViking team targeted new markets for helicopter and jet engine customers. Their innovative team designed a testing process utilizing Siemens cabinet module drives, motors and HMI which minimizes set up time between cycles and provides large energy savings by utilizing power regeneration features. This directly resulted in large cost savings and increased efficiencies for their new customer base.
The Saint Louis Brewery, LLC, Schlafly Bottleworks. This well-known customer, featured in the “Siemens Answers” national television advertising campaign, is Missouri’s largest locally-owned, independent brewery, producing more than 50 styles of beer. With growing demand and a limited expansion potential of its existing infrastructure, Schlafly needed to increase output, yet maintain the high-quality that is expected of its recipes. Schlafly upgraded its process controls by automating its brewing tasks with Siemens BRAUMAT process control system, a Simatic PCS 7 platform. Through the use of automation technology, Schlafly was able to increase process efficiency by 30%, improve product consistency and double production with the same number of production employees.
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