Contestants were recognized for their innovative use of Invensys products and solutions to generate significant business results in four Operational Excellence categories: Asset Excellence, Control Excellence, Productivity Excellence and Environment & Safety Excellence. The 2010 Invensys Operations Management OPEN winner for Asset Excellence is 9ren Group, of Madrid, Spain. The Control Excellence award went to Taiwan Power Co. The Productivity Excellence award was given to Xcellerex, of Marlborough, Mass., while New Belgium Brewery, of Fort Collins, Colo., was recognized for Environment & Safety Excellence."Marking the 16th year of the OPEN award program, our customers and ecosystem partners continue to create innovative applications using Invensys offerings to generate impressive business results," said Davidson. "Originally established as the Wonderware OPEN, we expanded the contest this year to include all the products and solutions across the Invensys Operations Management portfolio. As always, this competition gives our partners, clients, potential customers and the industry in general an opportunity to see the dramatic impact that Invensys-based applications can have when it comes to accelerating the journey to Operational Excellence."9ren Group is a new energies group focused on solar energy. The company designs, develops and operates solar photovoltaic and solar thermal plants in Spain and Italy. 9ren was selected for Asset Excellence based on a solution that positively impacted the performance of its operations, engineering and customer-care departments. The company's EOSystem, a platform for integrating remote renewable energy facilities in a unified, consistent and reliable control room, is built on Invensys' ArchestrA System Platform with Historian and Wonderware InTouch HMI + ActiveFactory software. Francisco Alija Garmón, monitoring and control manager, 9ren, said, "Using open Invensys software and solutions, we were able to reduce the number of people we need to control all the installations connected to the EOSystem, as well as reduce down time by 50 percent. From the engineering perspective, we reduced how long it takes to identify performance slowdowns from one month to two days and improved our solar tracker production by 5 percent. A final benefit is that we were able to improve our data collection and reporting, meaning we had more resources and information to respond to our customers' needs."The Control Excellence award was given to Taiwan Power Co. (TPC), which faces competition from independent power producers following the deregulation of the country's energy market in 2007. To maintain its market-leading position, TPC needed to increase the reliability of its production facilities and the availability of electricity to the grid. The company upgraded its process control systems at several fossil fuel, hydroelectric and nuclear power generating plants using a Foxboro I/A Series distributed control system (DCS) and mesh control network, Triconex critical safety systems and turbomachinery controls, and SimSci-Esscor dynamic simulation solutions.More than 30 percent of TPC's power output is now controlled and monitored by Invensys solutions. The company has reduced power surges in its nuclear water recirculation control system by 22 percent, which has cut water level swings. Invensys technology has also helped reduce the time TPC needs to conduct offline or online testing by 50 percent, and the total cost of ownership was significantly reduced because of the efficient upgrade process and improved visibility.Xcellerex is revolutionizing the way that biomolecules are developed, manufactured and commercialized, and was recipient of the award for Productivity Excellence. Using several Invensys solutions, including Wonderware System Platform, InBatch, InTouch HMI, Historian Software and Historian Client products, the Xcellerex technology platform allows manufacturing capacity to be deployed rapidly, flexibly and at greatly reduced cost compared with conventional technology. For example, fully integrated manufacturing capacity can be established within one year vs. three to five years, at a capital reduction of 50 percent to 75 percent compared with traditional facilities. This results in implementation savings and the ability to begin producing high-value products two to four years sooner than when leveraging a traditional system."Xcellerex has embraced the groundbreaking capabilities inherent within the Wonderware System Platform and InBatch products, leveraging that power to augment the value delivered to their customers," said Darren Kline, director, marketing and business development, Wonderware North. "We have partnered with Xcellerex to ensure they have the product awareness, best practices and ongoing support needed to fully utilize the Wonderware technology. We are proud that this partnership has helped Xcellerex uniquely blend the benefits of Wonderware software along with their own advanced technology to redefine ‘Productivity Excellence.' " New Belgium Brewery (NBB) was recognized for Environment & Safety Excellence. NBB uses Invensys products to maximize its sustainability efforts within its 500,000-barrel brewery in Fort Collins. NBB was the first brewery to use wind to power its plants, and when it started in 1999, was the largest private consumer of wind-powered electricity. Currently, NBB has the largest privately owned solar array in the state of Colorado, and solar energy accounts for 3 percent of its total electricity. Its wastewater plant produces methane as a by-product, which NBB uses to fuel its co-generation plant. When running full time, the co-generation plant supplies 15 percent of the brewery's power requirements."Since 1991, our charter has been to make world-class beers, promote a beer culture, be environmental stewards and to have fun doing it," said Igor Valuyev, chief electrical and automation engineer, New Belgium Brewing. "Invensys solutions are helping us achieve our goals."
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