Gensym joins petrochemical leaders in developing Abnormal Situation Management technology

Business Wire, Feb 9, 1995

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 9, 1995--Gensym Corp., leading provider of software for creating intelligent real-time systems, today formally announced that they have joined the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium.

Led by Honeywell, the consortium proposes to demonstrate the technical feasibility of collaborative decision-support technologies that can improve operations personnel's performance in handling abnormal plant situations. The U.S. Department of Commerce -- through the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Advanced Technology Program -- recently announced a 3.5 year, $8.15 million grant to the consortium.

The Honeywell-led ASM Consortium includes technology vendors Gensym and Applied Training Resources, specialty chemical manufacturer Novacor, and the U.S. operations of the seven largest petrochemcial companies -- Amoco, BP, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, and Shell. "The chemical and petrochemical companies in the consortium are long-standing Gensym customers, so our participation is a natural," said Gensym Chairman and CEO Lowell Hawkinson. "These companies, and other worldwide industry leaders, use Gensym's family of G2 software to create applications for intelligent process management, scheduling and logistics, quality management, and process design and simulation. Our customers are typically driven by the desire to increase safety and reduce operating costs. The ASM consortium shares these goals."

Disruptions in industrial processes can result in costly accidents, such as explosions and fires, as well as other problems, including poor product quality, schedule delays, and equipment damage. It is estimated that the inability of automated control systems and personnel to control abnormal situations costs the U.S. economy at least $20 billion a year.

The consortium's proposed goal requires innovations in human-machine interaction, system architecture, and system configuration tools. More than 30 technology development studies will be conducted and the results will be applied to the development of decision-support prototypes. This technology will have applications in a diverse range of industries including petrochemicals, telecommunications, and health care.

Gensym's family of software products is built around G2, a graphical object-oriented environment for building and delivering intelligent real-time systems. Gensym software products help organizations easily and productively capture and deploy the expert knowledge of their most talented personnel in intelligent real-time systems that improve quality, increase reliability, and lower operating costs. Typical applications include process optimization, supervisory control, dynamic scheduling, real-time quality management, advanced control using fuzzy logic and neural networks, and process re-engineering.

Founded in 1986, Gensym Corp. is the leading supplier of software products for developing and deploying intelligent real-time solutions for industrial, scientific, commercial, and government applications. With over 3,000 product licenses installed worldwide, Gensym serves 30 industrial sectors including the process industries, discrete manufacturing, telecommunications, environmental, power, and aerospace. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Gensym has regional offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Dortmund, Hong Kong, Houston, Leiden, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seoul, Toronto, Uppsala, and Washington, D.C.

-0-

All tradenames contained herein are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Gensym

Betsy Gartner, 617/547-2500 x241