Process firms prosper in manufacturing awards
15 Jan 2000
Processing equipment suppliers featured prominently at last month's presentation ceremony in London for this year's Manufacturing Industry Achievement Awards (MIAAs).
Organised by Process Engineering's parent company Miller Freeman, the MIAAs are now an established annual event, celebrating the best of British industry this year in front of an 800-strong audience. Among the 18 categories of awards - each sponsored by a relevant Miller Freeman engineering title - were two for the process industries sponsored by PE.
Winner of the Chemical Industry Innovation Award was AEA Technology for its development of sonocrystallisation, a process that opens up new applications for crystallisation in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The judges saw this as `an excellent example of a new process technology developed from fundamental research'. The other finalists in this category were Copel's supercritical CO2 extraction process, Trolex's TX6220 series of flame and spark sensors, and Serck Audco Valves' enclosed container transfer coupling system for handling solids.
The Process Product of the Year Award went to ITT Jabsco for its 55600 Series of ultra-hygienic rotary lobe pumps, which was designed from scratch rather than being a scaled-up version of earlier models.
The runner-up in this category was Extrusion Systems for its development of an advanced helical crimp polypropylene fibre technology, which produces wool-like fibres for the carpet industry. The other finalists in what was a close-run category were Brook Hansen for its highly energy-efficient `W' range of electric motors, and CADCentre for its virtual reality HyperPlant software for plant design over the Internet.
Other process companies scoring well in some of the other categories were: Danfoss, which won the Instrumentation Product of the Year Award for its Massflo Coriolis flowmeter; August Systems' CS300E Evolution triple redundancy control system and Fisher-Rosemount's Asset Management Solutions product, which were winner and runner-up respectively in the Control Product of the Year category; and Torbed Services electric food processor, the runner-up for the Food and Drink Industry Innovation Award.
