South African entity wins leadership award

Invensys Operations Management, a global provider of technology systems, software solutions and consulting services to the process and manufacturing industries, today announced that one of its key ecosystem partners, Wonderware Southern Africa, has received the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award for its success in the South African manufacturing execution systems (MES) market.

According to Frost & Sullivan, Wonderware Southern Africa "has continued to demonstrate excellence in providing MES products of the highest quality, a supreme customer service and unprecedented value to a broad spectrum of end-user sectors. These factors have helped Wonderware to firmly establish itself as the leading supplier within the South African MES market, supplying products to end-user sectors that include the metals, minerals and mining, chemicals and petrochemicals, as well as the food and beverage industries."

"This award is a tribute both to the strength of our partner, Wonderware Southern Africa, and to our MES solutions that are enabling an increasing number of our customers to optimise their entire plant operations in real time and achieve operational excellence," said Giuseppe Caltabiano, vice president, marketing, Invensys Operations Management, Europe, Russia and Africa.

"We are very honoured to receive such a prestigious award because the way our clients do business continues to change at an accelerated rate. Automation engineers and business IT professionals alike are starting to realise that MES is the vital information link between business and production that gives them the real-time control they're looking for," said Deon van Aardt, managing director of Wonderware Southern Africa. "This realisation is coming about after years of market education and proof of successful implementations in numerous industries and with companies of all sizes. No company can exist successfully without integrating their business and production processes. What we offer is not a new concept. It is a better way of integrating and disseminating knowledge, and therefore real-time control, at all levels of the organisation."

According to Frost & Sullivan, Wonderware Southern Africa and Invensys Operations Management have been successful for three critical reasons: They address a shortage of skilled engineers and technicians needed to install, control and maintain MES solutions; they educate end users about the benefits of employing MES technologies; and they continually introduce new software packages that enable Wonderware® System Platform and InTouch® HMI solutions to be integrated with MES, enterprise manufacturing intelligence, human-machine interface and SCADA solutions from a wide range of vendors using a single, unified platform. This approach empowers end users to achieve their business goals without abandoning prior investments in automation, process control or information systems.

"These combined factors make Wonderware Southern Africa the deserving recipient of the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award in the South African MES market," it concludes.