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Technology Stocks : TAVA Technologies (TAVA-NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mighty_Mezz who wrote (8481)	1/6/1998 11:48:00 PM
From: Zebra 365	Respond to of 31646

Topro's day job - Part One TAVA Technologies is the nation's largest and most experienced independent control systems integration company. Formerly conducting business under the names Topro Systems Integration, Advanced Control Technology (ACT), Vision Engineering, All-Control Systems (ACS), and Management, Design and Consulting Services, Inc. (MDCS), TAVA Technologies delivers innovative, sophisticated information and automation technology solutions as one unified company. The name TAVA was derived from the first letter of Topro Systems Integration, Advanced Control Technology, Vision Engineering and All-Control Systems. Our new name and identity reflect our company's greatly expanded scope of products and services, and its true nationwide presence. TAVA Technologies offers broad geographical coverage which means we can serve manufacturers both effectively and economically, nationally and internationally. Regional offices are located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento, Seattle and San Juan Puerto Rico. TAVA Technologies has the resources and skills to successfully accomplish projects of the largest size and complexity. All eleven geographic offices share a common approach to projects so that you will be assured of receiving the same high quality results whether from our offices in Los Angeles to Philadelphia. Yet working as individual companies, we retain the innovation, the flexibility and the proximity to our customers to assure that our custom tailored, personalized service will be continued. We are TAVA Technologies - employing the latest automation and information technology to enable manufacturers to improve products, increase yields, reduce costs and accelerate time-to-market. TAVA Technologies is an Allen-Bradley Authorized Systems Integrator ------------------------------------------ Industries We Serve Include: Aerospace Automotive Consumer Goods Food & Beverage (see BevOne) Forest Products Metals Mining & Minerals Petrochemical & Chemical Pharmaceutical Semiconductor Utilities Water/Wastewater -------------------------------------------------- Technical Solutions Include: Advanced Control Automatic Batching and Blending Bar Code Material Tracking Clean Room Control and Monitoring CNC/Motion Control Computer-Aided Dispatch DCS Configuration Engineered Drive Systems Facilities Automation Graphical User Interface Design HVAC Control and Monitoring Ingredient Delivery and Mixing Instrumentation and Control Devices Manufacturing Execution Systems Machine Vision Panel Fabrication and Assembly PLC Programming Recipe Management Substation Automation Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Training Validation/Regulatory Compliance ---------------------------------------- Consulting Services: Plant Assessment/Feasibility Studies Rapid Technology DeploymentT Methodology Specification Development Process Modeling & Strategic Planning Systems and Information Technology Selection Supply Chain Management Consulting Continuous Process Improvement --------------------------------------------------------

To: Mighty_Mezz who wrote (8481)	1/6/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: Zebra 365	Respond to of 31646

Topro's day job - Part Two Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories Infant Formula Flexible Batch System ------------------------------------------------------------ Challenge Wyeth-Ayerst's commitment to better health care for infants and children is reflected in its leadership in marketing a variety of nutritional products worldwide. SMA, known internationally as Formula S-26, continues to grow in use and in recommendations by health professionals. These products were the first ones fortified with nucleotides, compounds found in breast milk that may help to bridge the immunological gap between breast milk and commercial formulas. Exceptional growth continued for follow-on formulas such as Nursoy, a soy-based infant formula for infants and children allergic to cow's milk. Due to this exceptional growth in the demand for Nutritionals, Wyeth-Ayerst was challenged with increasing their Mason, Michigan plant's production of infant formula (SMA, Nursoy and Bonamil) in order to meet market demands. The plant was already operating three shifts per day, and was still having trouble meeting production goals. Their current DEC PDP8 system was outdated and no longer supported by DEC (they would not repair or provide spare parts for the system). Of the three DEC PDP8's they had for production, one was running and the other two were scavenged for parts to keep at least one in operation. Wyeth-Ayerst did not have the technology/skillsets to maintain the DEC system in-house so they had to rely heavily on outside support when the system went down - which was frequently. When the system crashed they lost production and rarely could recover or save batches. Solution Utilize TAVA Technolgies/ACS' software development expertise to install an automated flexible batch control system that tracks ingredients and provides detailed reports. The new system was designed to provide more control functionality and feedback to real-world conditions. The system is easy-to-use and very flexible. Programming was done in a modular fashion so manufacturing and supervisory personnel can now edit existing recipes in the database and have the ability to create new product recipes "on the fly." New report generation and data archiving capabilities at the control system level made Wyeth-Ayerst's existing use of chart recorders obsolete. Outcome Before the new system was installed the maintenance and production failure rate was in excess of 60%, this was reduced to 4% within the first year of production. Headcount was reduced while productivity increased . . . the new system now runs only two shifts per day, exceeds production needs and has reduced maintenance costs. The new system has significantly reduced production downtime and off-spec batches. In addition, it has increased flexibility and improved operator control. Automatic report generation has eliminated the need for manual reporting, and has greatly improved their FDA traceability reporting capabilities. ----------------------------------------------------- System Components (1) Foxboro Application Processor 51 with R-Batch and Historian Software Licenses (2) Foxboro Workstations w/19" Touchscreen, Keyboard (1) Foxboro Communications Processor 10 (8088) w/Dot Matrix Printer and Color Printer (7) Foxboro Control Processor 30 w/Fault Tolerant Module (80386) (5) Foxboro Engineering Workstations (80486) (1) Allen-Bradley PLC 5 Gateway (1) Modicon 984 Gateway (1) Custom Gateway servicing (3) Mettler-Toledo Bar Code and Scale Stations (Lot) Instrumentation/Valve Upgrades System Installation, Start-up and Validation (IQ/OQ and PQ Support) Batch Control, Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting 250 Recipes 1200 I/O Points