Yokogawa Electric Corporation is pleased to announce that Dave Emerson of Yokogawa Corporation of America has been awarded the Thomas G. Fisher Award presented by the World Batch Forum (WBF). This award was given May 1 at the WBF's annual meeting in Baltimore, MD.

The WBF's Thomas G. Fisher Award recognizes outstanding leadership in the field of manufacturing process operation and control. The award was established to honor Tom Fisher, a former WBF chairman and tireless contributor to efforts to improve batch manufacturing standards and methods. It is presented to individuals who have demonstrated notable leadership in the development, teaching, and popularization of technologies, services, and techniques in the process manufacturing field. The honor is awarded only with the unanimous consent and support of the Board of Directors of the WBF and only on those occasions when it is appropriate to recognize truly outstanding leadership of an individual in the field.

Mr. Emerson received the award in recognition of his leadership as chairman of the WBF XML Working Group, the group responsible for the Batch Markup Language (BatchML) and the Business To Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML). BatchML is an XML schema implementation of the ISA-88 Batch Control System Standard. B2MML is an XML schema implementation of the ISA-95 Enterprise-Control System Integration Standard. Both BatchML and B2MML have been widely adopted in the process manufacturing and provide process manufacturing and automation & IT system suppliers with an implementation ready form of the standards that can be used to accelerate projects and provide configurable interfaces. Also receiving the Thomas G. Fisher Award was Dennis Brandl, President of BR&L Consulting, who collaborated with Mr. Emerson in the development of BatchML and B2MML. The WBF also recognized Mr. Emerson's long service in the development of the ISA's ISA-88, Batch Control, and ISA-95 Enterprise-Control System Integration standards committees.

Commenting on this honor, Mr. Emerson said, "I would like to thank the WBF for this honor and also thank all the people who have helped with the success of the ISA-88 and ISA-95 standards as well as Batch ML and B2MML, and thank Yokogawa for their strong support of the standards process and open data exchange formats."

Mr. Emerson is only the third recipient in the 12 year history of the WBF organization, and this is the first time that this award has been given to an individual from an automation manufacturer and supplier.

The WBF - The Forum for Automation and Manufacturing Professionals, is dedicated to supporting the process automation and operations needs of the technical and management professions in process manufacturing. WBF facilitates the interchange and development of information and knowledge in order to help its members succeed and to exert a positive influence on industry.

World Batch Forum; http://www.wbf.org/