Industry News
Boeing Senior Executive in Germany Announces Retirement
Horst Teltschik, President Boeing Germany, has announced his decision to retire from the company at the end of June 2006. A successor will be announced shortly.
Teltschik developed strong relationships and partnerships with German universities and research institutes such as the Technical University of Munich and with German companies such as Siemens. New German suppliers have been selected for Boeing programs, including four suppliers to the 787 Dreamliner. Boeing has become more visible in the German aviation community, and participates actively in associations and aviation-related events. Boeing also is engaged in a number of community relations projects in Germany.
Teltschik is a German business executive and former senior official in the Office of the Chancellor. Beginning in 1972, he was closely associated with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and became his national security advisor in 1982. He was deeply involved with issues such as intra-German relations, the strengthening of the German-U.S. relationship and developing a fruitful dialogue with the Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact countries. In 1993, Teltschik joined the Board of BMW where he was responsible for public affairs and led the BMW Herbert Quandt Foundation, which encourages global political dialogue through suitable programs and events. He joined Boeing as President of Boeing Germany in early 2003.
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3M to Build Safety Products Manufacturing Facility in Korea
Representatives of 3M announced Thursday of the company’s intent to build a safety products manufacturing plant in Korea to meet the growing demand for respiratory protection products in Asia and to better serve its customers in the region.
The continued growth in manufacturing activities in Asia, combined with greater awareness of workplace safety practices, is driving strong demand for respiratory protection products.
The plant will initially manufacture maintenance-free respirators and elastomeric facepiece respirators that are primarily sold to industrial and professional customers. The new manufacturing plant will be located in Hwaseong, Korea, 20 miles outside of Seoul.
Over the last few years, 3M has made manufacturing investments to meet the demand for respiratory protection products, including adding manufacturing lines and increasing productivity at its facilities in Valley, Neb.; Aberdeen, S.D.; and Aycliffe, U.K.
Using its expertise in filtration technology and manufacturing capabilities, 3M supplies a full line of maintenance-free, elastomeric and powered-air purifying respirators. These products comply with government-approval requirements and meet customer respirator needs while also providing users with comfortable, easy-to-breathe-through respirators.
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General Dynamics Awarded $31 Million Contract for RG-31 Mine Protected Vehicles for the Canadian Military
The Government of Canada has awarded a CAD $31 million (US$28 million) contract to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada to provide 25 additional RG-31 Mine Protected Vehicles. General Dynamics Land Systems, the Canadian company’s parent corporation, is a business unit of General Dynamics.
This order is an option to a contract originally awarded in November 2005 that called for the delivery of 50 RG-31 vehicles. Vehicle deliveries were completed in April 2006. Deliveries of the additional 25 vehicles will occur from September to November 2006.
Under this contract, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada provides program management and engineering and logistics support while BAE Land Systems OMC of South Africa manufactures the vehicles. The vehicles incorporate a Kongsberg Protector M151 Remote Weapon Station equipped with a day and night sighting system, which allows the operator to fire the weapon while remaining protected within the vehicle.
The RG-31 tactical vehicle offers enhanced mine blast resistance as well as protection against both improvised explosive devices and ballistic threats. The vehicles, currently being used by the Canadian Forces in their operations in Afghanistan, have already proven their worth when an RG-31 survived a significant roadside bomb explosion earlier last month.
General Dynamics Land Systems- Canada has also completed deliveries of 148 RG-31 vehicles to the U.S. Army in fulfillment of a 2005 contract. In addition, the vehicles have been extensively used by NATO forces in the former Yugoslavia as well as by the United Nations in Lebanon, Georgia, Syria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.
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Rockwell Collins Completes Acquisition of Evans & Sutherland Simulation Business
Rockwell Collins, Inc. a global leader in aviation electronics and communications, has completed its acquisition of the simulation assets of Evans & Sutherland, a leading provider of visual simulation solutions for military and commercial customers.
Under the terms of a previously-announced agreement, Rockwell Collins acquired Evans & Sutherland's military and commercial simulation assets and certain liabilities, including simulation facilities in Salt Lake City, Orlando and the United Kingdom, in a US$71.5 million cash transaction. As part of this transaction, Rockwell Collins has exclusive rights to the Evans & Sutherland laser projector for simulation. Approximately 200 former Evans & Sutherland employees have joined Rockwell Collins.
As a result of this acquisition, Rockwell Collins now offers complete simulation and training solutions for military and commercial applications throughout the world, including the hardware and software to create highly realistic visual images for simulation, training, engineering, and other applications. Evans & Sutherland has retained ownership of its planetarium and laser projector businesses.
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The University of North Carolina Health Care System Teams With IBM to Implement Advanced Electronic Medical System
The University of North Carolina Health Care System (UNC Health Care) and IBM announced an advanced Web-based solution which allows over 7000 caregivers to access important medical data across in-patient and out-patient units and document patient care faster, easier and at reduced operating costs.
This comprehensive, interoperable electronic health record system, called "WebClinical Information Systems" (WebCIS) creates the foundation to securely deliver vital information anytime, anywhere via the Internet and has replaced the paper chart for almost one million patients who visit UNC Health Care annually.
Most large medical institutions that utilize electronic health records have one system for ambulatory care and another application used in the hospital setting. In most cases, these disparate systems are unable to communicate and exchange data with each other, making it nearly impossible to access comprehensive patient information when and wherever it is needed most.
By using the IBM Health Information Framework, which is based on industry open-standards and a service oriented architecture (SOA) to connect information from disparate medical systems, the new UNC Health Care WebCIS solution gives caregivers secure, single sign-on to access multiple applications, including lab reports, medical imaging, patient phone call information, scheduling, health maintenance and disease prevention modules, electronic signature/referring provider communication and more.
Since this solution integrates and synchronizes all patient information from both the hospitals and ambulatory care areas, patient safety and clinical efficiency has increased dramatically. This type of SOA approach will help UNC Health Care increase the flexibility of business process, strengthen underlying IT infrastructure and reuse IT services already deployed.
For example, the WebCIS solution helps care providers in the Emergency department immediately access comprehensive patient information such as medications, allergies, health maintenance status, previous medical device images and all text-based reports of prior treatments all within a matter of seconds, rather than the usual 10-20 minute wait for a paper chart.
With WebCIS, "on-call" providers now have full access to patient information on multiple devices, including Web-enabled PDAs and smart phones, making it possible for them to glean as much historical patient data as necessary, wherever they are, in order to make more informed decisions about care directives.
Because of this new solution, UNC Health Care is one of the first large institutions to be able to transmit prescriptions electronically in real time to participating pharmacies within the state of North Carolina and across the nation. In addition, UNC Health Care is working on a SOA-based link with a service provider to check duplicate drug, drug interaction and dosage information on outpatient-based prescriptions.
