INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
TOTALMOBILE TotalMobile App Platform The TotalMobile App Platform is a workflow management solution for employees who deliver services off-site. It ensures they have the right information at their fingertips on the mobile device of choice, when and where they need it. It also integrates with any backend system without the need for any further software development. Designed to improve customer service and save money through improved productivity, the App Platform is a complete end-to-end solution for a diverse range of organisations that seek more effective service delivery. Customers using the app typically achieve productivity improvements of between 20% and 40%, significant reductions in paperwork and up to 15% savings in fuel usage.
About TotalMobile TotalMobile was first established in 1985 (as TASK) and developed their first mobile product in 1999 for the Palm Pilot. Today the company provides the TotalMobile App Platform to a range of Government and Private Sector customers in the US and mainland Europe, as well as throughout the UK and Ireland. They recently ventured into the Healthcare sector in response to the NHS mHealth strategy, but at all times and no matter what the end user’s specialism, the company has one simple objective behind everything it does: “We believe in making work more productive and enjoyable by providing enterprise apps that users love.”
did you know? Aberdeen City Council saves £1.5m every year by using the TotalMobile App Platform.
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
catagen Catagen – Setting The New Standard in Automotive Catalyst Testing Automotive vehicle manufacturers must meet emissions targets set by governments. When a new vehicle is launched, the manufacturer must provide test data demonstrating that the installed exhaust system and catalytic converter is fit for purpose. Traditional testing methods involve the use of an engine, as shown, that burns costly gasoline that in turn pollutes the environment with CO2. Catagen’s industry leading testing equipment performs the same necessary tests, however it is better, cheaper and cleaner to operate than any other methods available in the marketplace.
About Catagen Catagen is a spin out from Queen’s University. Since then, it has grown and recruited personnel to fully exploit the market opportunity. The company locally manufacturers and exports its patented test equipment to some of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers.
did you know? —One Catagen Maxcat machine can displace the same amount of CO2 per year as absorbed by 75 acres of forest over the same period of time. —One Catagen Maxcat saves the same amount of energy per year as there is in around 1600 barrels of oil or 300 tonnes of Gasoline! INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Schrader Electronics Tyre Pressure Monitoring System Schrader’s TPMS Sensor, attached to the tyre valve stem, measures pressure and temperature inside the tyre environment and transmits this data via Radio Frequency to a receiver located centrally in the vehicle. The receiver processes the digital data stream, sending status information and warnings to the vehicle display unit, alerting the driver of tyre under inflation and helping to reduce fuel consumption. Schrader has developed this product for passenger vehicles, motorbikes, off road and after market applications and is launching an innovative Tyre Mounted Sensor (TMS), where the sensor is mounted directly onto the internal tyre tread, for applications in trucks and passenger vehicles. Schrader has remained lead supplier of TMPS since initial launch in 1996 with over 50% global market share.
About Schrader Electronics Schrader Electronics designs and manufactures automotive and industrial electronics and is market leader in tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). An innovative organisation, Schrader Electronics has leveraged its sensing expertise to develop a range of pioneering products. Employing over 1000 people worldwide, the company has world class manufacturing facilities in Antrim, Carrickfergus and Tennessee and a high tech R&D Centre employing 150 engineers across a range of disciplines at its Head Office.
did you know? —Schrader Electronics serves the world’s top car brands including Mercedes, General Motors, BMW and Ford with a presence in 12 countries. —In 2012 Schrader Electronics celebrated production of 200 Million Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems.
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
—The Company shipped 40 Million sensors in 2012 from its state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Antrim, Carrickfergus and North America to markets in Europe, North America and Asia.
Seagate Disk Drive Recording Heads At Seagate Springtown, recording heads for computer disk drives are engineered in cleanroom conditions because dust particles are huge in comparison to the heads’ working parts. The processes are very much like those used in the manufacture of integrated circuits or silicon chips. Layers of conductors, insulators and magnetic materials are built up and patterned on a highly-polished ceramic wafer to form structures so small—the most critical parts of the head are only a few nanometres (billionths of a metre) across—that they are only visible using sophisticated microscopes that use electrons rather than light. In this way, tens of thousands of identical heads are made on each wafer. The patterns are created using lithography—a process similar to photography, using light-sensitive materials, but on a miniature, nano-scale.
About Seagate Seagate came to Northern Ireland in 1993 with the establishment of a wafer fabrication facility at Springtown Industrial Estate in Londonderry. Today, the facility employs some 1,400 people—out of the American-based company’s worldwide workforce of 55,000—in the development and manufacture of read-write heads for hard disk drives. The Springtown facility is the largest factory of its type in the recording head industry. It supplies over a million heads every day for Seagate disk drives and uses some of the most advanced technology in existence. The facility is an integral part of Seagate’s supply chain that extends on a global basis.
did you know? Seagate makes about 40% of all the world’s disk drives and over two-thirds of them contain heads from Springtown.
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
warner Chilcott Asacol Ulcer Treatment Tablet Coating Ulcerative colitis is a debilitating disease of the colon of unknown cause, where chronic inflammatory reactions occur, resulting in ulcers. Mesalamine (the active ingredient in Asacol) was discovered to be useful against ulcerative colitis in the mid 1960s, but it wasn’t until the mid 1970s and early 1980s that medicine began to understand how this compound affects the disease. By 1980, we knew that Mesalamine acts locally on the ulcers in the colon so we realised our challenge was how to get the chemical to this difficult to reach part of the body. Solving this problem required a combination of chemistry, biology and physics. The product was formulated with a novel enteric coating around the tablet that means that the active drug is not released in the stomach and small intestine, but in the large intestine where the ulceration occurs. These innovations, developed in NI, turned Mesalamine into a treatment for a serious health condition.
About Warner Chilcott Warner Chilcott is a leading specialty pharmaceutical company that has its global Pharmaceutical Development unit based in Larne. The company is focused on women's healthcare, gastroenterology, urology and dermatology segments of the branded pharmaceuticals market, primarily in North America. They are a fully integrated company with internal resources dedicated to the development, manufacture and promotion of a diverse range of products.
did you know? Asacol Ulcer Treatment generates annual global sales of $800M
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
heartsine samaritan® PAD 500P Defibrillator From local sports grounds to The White House in Washington DC, HeartSine Technologies places life-saving technology in the hands of the public, presenting ordinary people with the means to deal effectively with Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), which kills 270 people every single day in the UK. Many of these deaths could be prevented if a defibrillation ‘shock’ was administered to the victim within 5 minutes. HeartSine’s samaritan PAD with CPR advisor SAM 500P uses a patented technology to tell a rescuer if they should ‘push harder’, ‘push faster’ or ‘push slower’ when delivering CPR compressions as well as when to deliver the ‘shock’. HeartSine’s Automated External Defibrillators are among the smallest, lightest, most innovative and most portable on the market.
About HeartSine Technologies Founded in 1997 by Professor John Anderson, HeartSine’s heritage goes back to the development of the world’s first out-of-hospital defibrillator at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast in the 1960s. Professor Frank Pantridge introduced the idea of mobile coronary care when he noticed that heart patients were not surviving long enough to reach hospital where they could be ‘shocked‘ back to life. Prof. Pantridge approached Prof. Anderson to lead biomedical engineering research into the development of a mobile defibrillator. The first mobile defibrillator weighed nearly 50kg and housed two 12V car batteries. Developments in technology reduced the size and weight. Prof. Anderson’s work led to a number of advancements which are now used in all kinds of defibrillator models.
did you know? —The process emergency departments use to treat cardiac arrest is known as ‘The Belfast Protocol’
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
—HeartSine samaritan PAD are produced in 26 languages and are used in to save lives in more than 40 countries around the world.
BomBardier Aerospace Advanced Composite Wing Technology Bombardier Aerospace has over 40 years’ experience in the field of advanced composite technology, which in layman’s terms is reinforced carbon fibre, and has developed its own unique process. It has developed and patented this innovative technology, known as Resin Transfer Infusion (RTI) to produce the wings for Bombardier’s CSeries aircraft. It is different to the composite technologies used in most other aircraft programmes, where the material is supplied pre-impregnated with resin. The resin basically binds the fibres together to create the hard durable structure when it is ‘cured’ under high temperature and pressure in an autoclave. However, with RTI, Bombardier uses ‘dry’ carbon fibre fabrics to create the structure and then the resin is injected into the structure after it is placed in the autoclave. In summary, the results are the most technologically advanced composite aircraft wings in the world.
About Bombardier With some 5,000 employees, Bombardier Aerospace, Belfast (Short Brothers plc) is one of the largest aircraft companies in the UK. It is a centre of excellence for the design, manufacture and support of large aircraft structures, including fuselages, nacelles and wings in both metal and advanced composites. It plays a major role in all of Bombardier’s aircraft families, as well as producing components for other international manufacturers, such as Rolls-Royce and General Electric.
did you know? —Bombardier Aerospace, Belfast is the world’s oldest aircraft manufacturer, having built six aircraft for the Wright brothers in 1909. —As Short Brothers, it developed the first aircraft to take off from a moving ship; the first aircraft to transition from vertical to horizontal flight; and many flying boats.
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
—Every three seconds, a Bombardier aircraft takes off or lands somewhere in the world.
creative composites Compression Moulding Creative Composites is at the forefront of the composites industry and manufactures market leading glass reinforced components using a range of processes. The company leads the industry in compression moulding using a material called SMC (sheet moulding compound). SMC is suited to high volume applications where a manufacturer is seeking a well-designed product incorporating additional features such as bosses, ribs, alignments, locations and inserts that would normally use extra metal components.
About Creative Composites Creative Composites is the UK’s most advanced composites manufacturer and are leading the way in what can be achieved. They supply solutions for a wide selection of clients in many different industries including transport, automotive, high fashion furniture and food and beverage with over 60% of its production exported to Europe, USA and Brazil. World leading facilities include advanced compression moulding presses, 5-axis CNC trimming centres, robotics and automated painting. This technology coupled with experienced and knowledgeable staff, enables the company to manufacture high quality innovative composite products.
did you know? —Creative Composites customers include world leading luxury sports car manufacturers, one of the world’s largest forklift truck manufacturers and a UK leading bus manufacturer to name but a few.
INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Pure Marine DUO Wave Energy Converter Following research into new design concepts, Pure Marine has developed a new wave energy converter called the DUO, which captures power from both the heave and the pitch/surge motions induced by wave action. The multi-mode power capture features of the DUO mean that the system can generate more electricity from a given wave environment than existing design concepts with similar production and maintenance costs – which translates directly to an equivalent reduction in the cost of energy produced by the DUO.
About Pure Marine Pure Marine Gen Ltd. (Pure Marine) was formed in 2007 by Paul Brewster as a vehicle for the development of wave energy technology. The business is focused on addressing the key challenge facing the wave energy sector – how to produce more energy at a lower cost. There are massive untapped energy sources in the world’s oceans and the UK & Ireland are particularly well placed to exploit them. Recent reports concluded that there is potential to deliver over 75 TWh/y (over 8 times Northern Ireland’s needs) from the UK’s marine energy resources alone.
did you know? —One of the first commercial wave energy systems to be deployed anywhere in the world was designed and developed at Queens University, Belfast. —The Wells Turbine is the most widely deployed wave energy technology in the world today. It was invented by Prof. Alan Wells at Queen’s University Belfast in the late 1970s. INNOVATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
—The Seagen turbine deployed in Strangford Lough is the largest operating tidal turbine in the world today.