Movers and Shakers: Schneider Electric joins climate change fight; Blue-White achieves ISO certification
Mergers, acquisitions, expansions and partnerships
Schneider Electric collaborates to fight climate change
At the One Planet Summit in December 2017, Schneider Electric committed to achieve carbon neutrality and 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. To realize these goals, the company joined three initiatives:
- RE100 — Global collaborative initiatives led by The Climate Group
- EP100 — Led by The Climate Group, Schneider Electric agreed to double the economic output from every unit of energy consumed against a 2005 baseline.
- Livelihoods Carbon Fund — Schneider Electric launched an impact investment fund with a target of $118 million to improve the lives of two million people and avoid up to 25 million tons of CO2 emissions over 20 years.
Trelleborg acquires Automated Dynamics
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions acquired Automated Dynamics, a U.S.-based manufacturer of advanced composiste components. The deal gives Trelleborg the technology to develop next-generation composites for challenging applications in industries such as marine, hydro and aerospace. Automated Dynamics had about $7.8 million in sales in 2016.
Siemens rebrands subsidiary to take its name
NEM Energy, a specialist in heat recovery steam generators for power plants, will be known as Siemens Heat Transfer Technology (HTT). Company details, including the legal structure and top leadership, will not change.
The new naming structure is:
Deutschland
Subsea construction launch and recovery. Image courtesy of C-Innovation
Siemens acquired the company in 2011.
Subsea projects group forms to offer turnkey solutions
Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) affiliate C-Innovation recently formed a turnkey subsea projects group. Based in Houston, Texas, C-Innovation’s in-house project management team provides engineering support, procedure development and review, project execution and final reporting requirements. The company aims to deliver savings customers by accessing ECO’s inventory of mission-specific vessels.
AkzoNobel invests nearly $15M in Mexico expansion
AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals will spend more nearly $15 million to expand the production capacity and upgrade its organic peroxides facility in Los Reyes, Mexico, by May 2019. Organic peroxides are used to make a wide range of polymers. A new facility will be constructed to make Perkadox CH-50 organic peroxides. The company has been investing heavily in its Polymer Chemistry business. It increased peroxyester capacity in North American by 40 percent when it finalized a $27-million organic peroxides expansion in January 2017.
CPV partners with ChemFlow on distribution agreement
Admiral Valve LLC announced an exclusive distribution agreement with ChemFlow Products LLC through its subsidiary, CPV Manufacturing. The partnership is designed to strengthen CPV’s connection to the Gulf Coast region. CPV manufacturers high-pressure valves and fittings for industrial gas, petrochemical and shipbuilding industry applications.
Image courtesy of Solon Manufacturing.
Appointments
Solon Manufacturing appoints first female executive as new president
Diane Popovich succeeded J. Timothy Dunn as president of Solon Manufacturing Company, becoming the company’s first female executive. She will focus on strategic planning and infrastructure as she oversees all company areas. With more than 20 years of manufacturing industry experience, Popovich joined the company as sales and marketing director in 2015 and has served as vice president of operations since 2017.
Dunn transitioned to the role of chairman of the board.
Image courtesy of the Texas A&M Engineering & Experiment Station
Engineer named Turbomachinery Laboratory interim director
John A. Pappas, P.E., will serve as interim director for the Turbomachinery Laboratory, a center of the Texas A&M Engineering & Experiment Station (TEES). He is also director of strategic initiatives for TEES. As interim director, Pappas will manage laboratory operations and oversee planning of the Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia, Asia Turbomachinery & Pump Symposium and other initiatives.
Pappas has served as interim director for TEES’ Texas A&M Energy Institute and Texas A&M’s National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing. He was also director of the Texas A&M Wind Energy Center.
Image courtesy of Viega LLC
Viega hires director of sales operations
Craig Cullen joined Viega LLC as director of sales operations. He will support sales as it relates to reporting, analysis, demand forecasting and pricing analysis. He has been in sales operations for more than 25 years in several industries, including consumer products, pump manufacturing, connectors manufacturing, eCommerce and billing services. At his previous employer, Xylem Inc., Cullen won several awards for commercial excellence.
Gannett Fleming chooses new staff
Kevin Switala, GISP, was named Gannett Fleming’s new chief technology officer. He will provide strategic technical leadership and oversight of Gannett Fleming division Information Technology Services. Switala most recently served as vice president of GeoDecisions, Gannett Fleming’s geospatial technology division. In all, he has more than 18 years of experience with the company.
Gannett Fleming chose Joe Tulmello to serve as Northeast region facilities business line leader. He will use his 20 years of industry experience to oversee business strategy and planning, project delivery and operational growth of the company’s facilities practices across Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Grundfos names head of Asia Pacific region
Kim Jensen will serve as group senior vice president and regional managing director of Grundfos’ Asia Pacific region. He will lead business operations across 22 countries and spearhead opportunities for growth in the region. Kim has been with the company for 25 years, serving most recently as group senior vice president and regional managing director for the Europe, Middle East and Africa markets.
Awards, milestones and achievements
Schneider Electric center achieves Level 5 CMMI designation
The CMMI Institute appraised Schneider Electric’s India-based Software Delivery Center (SDC) at Level 5 of its Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Few companies in the industrial software industry carry the designation, noted a press release from Schneider.
Level 5 indicates that an organization performs at an "optimizing" level, continually proving its processes based on quantitative understanding of business objectives and performance needs. Schneider realized the appraisal over three years. Three achievements by Schneider are:
- Attaining a schedule variance of less than 1 percent
- Maintaining effort variances of less than 3 percent
- Delivering an industry-leading client satisfaction score
Blue-White obtains ISO certification
Blue-White recently achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification, an internationally recognized standard for quality management systems (QMS). More than 1.1 million certificates have been issued to organizations throughout 178 countries, making it’s the most widely used QMS standard in the world. The standard helps establish a baseline for effective process and people to consistently deliver effective products or services.
China National Petroleum Corporation selected as Franz Edelman award finalist
INFORMS selected China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) as one of six finalists for the 47th annual Franz Edelman Award for achievements in Operations Research and Management Science.
CNPC controls 75 percent of China’s natural gas resources and pipeline network. To meet China’s growing natural gas demand, CNPC partnered with University of California, Berkeley and Tsinghua University researchers to develop and implement software that optimized the country’s natural gas pipeline. Before the software, CNPC’s annual planning was conducted with manual spreadsheets. CNPC has realized about $330 million in savings since implementing the new system at the end of 2014.
The award winner will be presented at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research in Baltimore, Maryland, held April 15–17.
Huffman Engineering becomes seventh US company certified as Schneider partner
Schneider Electric named Huffman Engineering a Certified Alliance Integration Partner, making it the seventh U.S. company to meet the technical requirements for the status. The designation allows Huffman to work closely with Schneider to provide customers with a high level of knowledge and skill in control system integration. As part of the process, nine Huffman employees passed an exam on Schneider Electric PlanStruxture software.
