October 2006

Larry Weiner, Associate Director of Global Project Engineering for BiogenIdec and Rick Pierro, President of Superior Controls gave a joint presentation on integrating automation into large Biotech capital projects at the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE) Boston, Product Show. The October 18th event, held at Gillette Stadium, attracted over 1500 biotech professionals from around the country. The talk included real life examples, some humorous, of "brilliant successes and shocking catastrophes" seen throughout the speakers twenty years experience.

Larry Weiner described numerous methods of implementing capital projects from the owners perspective. He discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Design-Bid-Build, Construction Management at Risk, and Design-Build, along with his experiences in introducing the Automation Systems Integrator to the project.

Rick Pierro discussed capital project implementation from the System Integrators perspective. He discussed how the implementation of automation is different from most other functions and the importance of assembling the right team on both the customer and integrators sides. He used, as an example, the success the $100 M Mass Biologics facility in Mattapan that both Mr. Weiner, then Director of Engineering of Mass Biologics, and Superior Controls, successfully implemented in 2005.

At 50+ experienced automation engineers, Superior Controls is New England's largest independent systems integrator providing industrial automation and information systems to the Biotech, Chemical, and Food and Beverage Industries. These projects often include PLC and DCS based controls with full scale Manufacturing Execution Systems.