1997 Press Releases-01

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has taken over GTI-Industrial Automation, a Dutch company specializing in safeguard systems for petroleum refineries or chemical or petrochemical plants. This acquisition will bring Yokogawa both the cutting-edge technology and engineering know-how of industrial safeguard systems that have come to play an increasingly important role in manufacturing plants around the world. It will also enable Yokogawa to offer a more complete set of solutions for the entire range of a plant's operations.

These systems, as their name suggests, are primarily designed for the process industry to securely and unerringly carry out such emergency tasks as plant shutdowns by accurately detecting failures during operation. An industrial safeguard system serves the purpose of not only protecting plant facilities and equipment but also preventing disastrous hazards, such as explosions or fire, injuries to personnel and accidents leading to environmental pollution. The system is positioned to be functionally independent of control-oriented systems, including distributed control systems(DCS's).

As recently as the early 1990s, programmable safeguard systems began taking the place of conventional relay-based systems as standard equipment at petroleum refineries and chemical and petrochemical plants, among others, around the world. For new plants in particular, there is an increasing tendency of owners to request DCS vendors to supply plant control systems that include safeguard systems.

Safety standards, such as IEC1508 (an international standard), ISA-S84 (in the United States) and DIN19250 (in Germany), are beginning to regulate safety levels for facilities, systems and equipment, inviting a growing interest throughout industry in safeguards.

The Japanese petroleum industry is also beginning to see signs that plants are introducing state-of-the-art safeguard systems instead of conventional relay-based systems.

Acquiring certification for the ISO14000 series of standards, the model for environmental management systems, is now a growing concern around the world.

And so is people's interest in safeguard systems from the viewpoint of global environmental preservation. Thus, the importance of these systems has increased for reasons of necessity to comply with safety standards and as an approach to environmental preservation. This area of industry is, therefore, a promising market that will blossom in the future.

GTI-IA is a leader in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands with 200 employees and annual sales topping 3 billion yen. The company has more than 35 years of experience in the manufacture and sale of industrial safeguard systems.

GTI-IA is dedicated to providing systems that comply with the highest safety levels prescribed by international standards. It has dealings with the major oil companies of the world and other leading North American and European customers. GTI-IA is especially adept at constructing safeguard systems for use at petroleum refineries and gas, nuclear and chemical plants. The company has an assuring record of shipments, industry-proven cutting-edge technology and extensive engineering know-how. With this background, GTI-IA plays a leading role in international conferences on IEC or ISA safety standards.

Yokogawa acquired GTI-IA by buying all 100% of the company's shares from GTI-Holding, its parent company in the Netherlands. The purchase is valued at about 2 billion yen, or approximately US$16 million. The new name for the company is Yokogawa Industrial Safety Systems B.V.(YIS, in short) which was officially reincorporated on April 1. Bert van der Els, the president of GTI-IA, has taken the positions of representative director and president of YIS.

As a result of the acquisition, Yokogawa is entering the business of industrial safeguard systems which are beginning to draw attention throughout the industrial world. Yokogawa will now develop its operations for building plant control systems to incorporate safeguard systems which may become mandatory in order to comply with ISO or other international safety standards.