Keywords
Citation
(2004), "Fortune Magazine names Cognex Corporation's founders “Heroes of Manufacturing”", Sensor Review, Vol. 24 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2004.08724dab.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Fortune Magazine names Cognex Corporation's founders “Heroes of Manufacturing”
Fortune Magazine names Cognex Corporation's founders “Heroes of Manufacturing”
Cognex recognised for its “Technical Brilliance” in developing machine vision technology that revolutionises manufacturing
Keywords: Cognex, Machine vision, Awards
Cognex, the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, recently announced that the company's three founders, Dr Robert J. Shillman, Chairman and CEO, Bill Silver, Senior Vice-President and CTO and Marilyn Matz, Senior Vice President of Engineering, have been selected by Fortune Magazine as “Heroes of Manufacturing” for 2004. An annual feature, Heroes of Manufacturing honours companies and individuals who are trailblazers in the manufacturing industry. The feature will be published on 8 March 2004 in Fortune's Industrial Management and Technology edition, which is distributed to more than 250,000 subscribers.
Founded in 1981, Cognex created the market for machine vision systems, which can be simply described as computers that can “see”. Machine vision is used wherever vision is needed to perform automated assembly and process control tasks such as ensuring the correct number of chocolate chips in cookies or ensuring the correct placement of semiconductor chips inside mobile phones. Co-founder Dr Robert J. Shillman left an academic position at MIT to start Cognex, inviting two of the school's top graduate students, Bill Silver and Marilyn Matz, to join him. The company's three co-founders provided the impetus to make Cognex the world's leading machine vision company, with over 200,000 vision systems sold to date.
“We are honoured to be recognised by Fortune Magazine”, stated Dr Shillman. “Credit truly belongs to the entire Cognex team of experienced and dedicated individuals, whose high standards, creativity and hard work over a long period of time have brought our company to the forefront of the machine vision industry. Our priority continues to be customer focused to ensure that everything that we do is driven to satisfy the needs of our current and future customers”.
“Over the last 20 years, machine vision has become a critical component in advanced manufacturing, as important as motors, gears and conveyor lines,” explained CTO, Bill Silver. “The development of machine vision has enabled products to be mass-produced that would otherwise be very expensive and, therefore, beyond the reach of many consumers. Just about everything that you buy today, from razor blades and nappies, to DVD players and mobile phones, would be far more expensive and less reliable, were it not for automated production. And today, in many factories around the world, automated production is made possible because of Cognex's systems”.