FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 24, 2010                                                                                                                       [ PRINT ]


Joining Technologies Awarded Platinum Level CQIA Innovation Prize.

Scott Boynton receives Thomas A. Edison AwardCQIA Innovation Prize 16th Annual Platinum Winners
Embody Connecticut's Diversity

August 24, Stamford: The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award's 16th Annual CQIA Innovation Prize platinum winners embody Connecticut's Diversity.

"This year's platinum winners of the CQIA Innovation Prize stand out not only for their originality and inventive spirit, but for their diversity to one another," said Sheila Carmine, founder and executive director of the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnerships, Inc. "The 2010 winners have re-imagined and created great innovations changing the way we garden, shop for groceries, weld steel and even how we listen to a patient's heartbeat. What's more impressive is that wonderful new ideas have all come from right here in Connecticut."

The four platinum CQIA Innovation Prize winners are from throughout the state.

 

1) Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center (Derby, CT). Their senior manager, communications says, "The innovation is an at-a-glance nutrition guidance system which appears on supermarket shelf tags next to prices. The system, called NuVal, calculates a single score for each food by weighing more than 30 nutrient entries, based on their effects on overall health, for each product. Once calculations are complete, foods are given a score between 1 to 100. The higher the score, the more nutritious the food. NuVal is currently in more than 700 supermarkets nation-wide.

2) Zargis Medical.

3) CowPots (East Canaan, CT). Their president and inventor, Matthew Freund, explains, "CowPots are biodegradable, plantable seedling containers invented by a farmer and made with 100% renewable composted cow manure. CowPots grow stronger, healthier plants than other pots on the market. CowPots' manufacturing process eliminates weeds, pathogens, and odor while keeping the goodness of manure. CowPots offer a sustainable, earth-friendly alternative to seedling posts made of oil based plastics or peat mined from fragile foreign bog eco-systems. They are 100% USA, bovine-approved."

4) Joining Technologies (East Granby, CT). The inventor of their platinum winning innovation, Infinite Web, reports, "Joining Technologies recognized a demand in the steel converting industry for rapid, high quality welding of steel and stainless steel strips end to end to generate long spools. In response, the development of the Infinite Web led to the first known automatic laser splicing system designed for either ferrous or nonferrous metals that takes a new approach to strip splicing, using one laser to cut and weld strip while producing faster, higher quality splices in thinner material than was previously possible."

The 23-year old Connecticut Quality Improvement Award (CQIA) is the nation's first state level quality award using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence and Innovation criteria in a campaign to advance innovative programs that improve quality, performance and marketplace competitiveness. CQIA supports "Five Steps to the Baldrige Award" with the entry level CQIA Innovation Prize, midlevel Breakthrough Quality Award, and highest level Leadership Quality Award.

All awards recognize manufacturing and service companies, health care, education, government and other not-for-profit organizations. The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership, Inc., a Connecticut not-for-profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt corporation, receives no money from state or federal government.

For 2010, 97% of organizations applying for the CQIA Innovation Prize demonstrated their success in the challenge of developing unique products, services or processes capable of tackling real-world problems, says Carmine. Of the 59 CQIA Innovation Prize applications, four were awarded platinum, 16 gold, 37 silver, and two were undeserving.

This year the 23rd Annual Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Conference on Quality and Innovation will be held at Water's Edge Resort in Westbrook on Friday October 29, 2010 with speakers from some CQIA Innovation Prize platinum and gold recipients as well as the most recent Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient in manufacturing sharing insights into his organization's quality journey to winning the Baldrige Award. The conference is available to the public.

16th Annual Connecticut Quality Improvement Award's CQIA Innovation Prize Recipients: (Manufacturing)

C&M Corporation, cables, assemblies, coil cords, Wauregan, gold
Data Management, Inc., VisitorPass solution, Farmington
Defibtech, Guilford, Full-color, Full-Motion Video Display Automated External Defibrillator, gold
DYMAX, Torrington
See-Cure Technology for Light-curable Adhesives, gold
DYMAX, Torrington Light Curing with LED Technology, gold
Funkoos, Organic baby apparel, Danbury
Joining Technologies, East Granby, platinum
KimchuK, Sniper Detection System, Danbury, gold
Owl Computing Technologies, Remote, monitoring system for secure data transfer systems, Ridgefield, gold
PerkinElmer - Optical design, Shelton, gold
TRUMPF, Industrial lasers, Farmington, gold
Praxair, Danbury

Sheila Carmine
Founder and Executive Director
Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership, Inc.
PO 1396
Stamford, CT 06904-1396
203 322-9534
www.ctqualityaward.org
cqia@aol.com