Burlington, ON – Jan 30, 2014 – Astrix Networks Inc., operating as Memex Automation (“Astrix” or the “Company”) (TSX-V:OEE), is pleased to announce that Dave Edstrom, recently past President and Chairman of the Board of the MTConnect Institute, has purchased an equity interest in the Company and has joined the senior management team as Chief Technology Officer.
Edstrom brings decades of software experience to Memex Automation and has been in a number of technology and leadership roles for a range of companies. Prior to his new role, he served for three and a half years as President and Chairman of the Board of the MTConnect Institute, where he was instrumental in the creation of the MTConnect standard.
In October 2006, while working at Sun Microsystems, Edstrom and Dr. David Patterson of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), laid out the MTConnect vision at AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology’s Annual Meeting. Edstrom is also the author of the book “MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know” as well as a prolific writer of white papers, technical and business articles. Edstrom worked for Sun Microsystems for 23 years in a variety of leadership positions, including as Chief Technologist for Global Software, when he left to start his own company in 2010. Prior to Sun Microsystems, Edstrom held a number of positions including assembly language programmer, systems engineer, Principal Engineer, as well as in computer hardware and software sales. His career includes working with a broad range of software and hardware technologies for commercial and government markets with both direct sales and partners, and he retains his title of CEO/CTO at Virtual Photons Electrons, LLC., his consulting firm.
The Company is pleased to announce it has closed the first tranche of the private placement previously announced on January 15, 2014. Upon joining Memex Automation, Edstrom has purchased 1,114,500 units at a price of $0.14 each. Each unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (a “Common Share”) and one warrant (a “Warrant”). Each Warrant entitles Mr. Edstrom to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.145 per share at any time prior to 4:00 p.m. (Ontario time) on January 30, 2016. The securities are subject to a hold period, which will expire on May 31, 2014. The closing is subject to receipt of final approval from the TSX Venture Exchange.
Edstrom stated, “I have had the privilege of working with Memex Automation on a variety of efforts when I was the President and Chairman of the MTConnect Institute. I am absolutely convinced that this company is positioned to become the global leader in its vertical, helping manufacturers maximize utilization and gain productivity. I am thrilled to be joining the Memex Automation team as the Chief Technology Officer in an ownership position to drive technology, create new opportunities, and help it become a global power in manufacturing solutions.”
“I’m delighted Dave has joined our ownership and leadership team, as it enables him to continue to lead the global manufacturing sector out of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century with an MTConnect-based universal machine to machine (M2M) productivity solution,” said Memex Automation’s President & CEO, David McPhail. “This should signal to manufacturers globally that Memex Automation is doing things right – that using MERLIN, our flagship product, they can connect their plants’ points of production to their business intelligence tools in real-time while increasing production and income from operations by 10% or more.”
About MERLIN:
- MERLIN translates all protocols such as Fanuc Focas, OPC and MTConnect, an XML-based, open source, royalty free protocol into information that management, engineering and maintenance teams use to:
- Measure OEE in real-time, providing an objective voice of process from each point of production, fabrication and assembly
- Bucket “idle time” to its root cause and converts some of it back into production time
- Capture and define quality issues by process step to define poor quality root causes
- Define machining parameters, tolerances, conditions and production flow on a SKU basis
- Optimize machine states and conditions, to increase spindle time and asset utilization
- Increase production and thereby increase income from operations
About the company
Operating under the trade name Memex Automation, Astrix Networks Inc. (TSX-V:OEE) is the leader of the measurement of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). OEE is the measurement of plant-wide capacity utilization in real-time. MERLIN (Manufacturing Enterprise Real-time Lean Information Network) generates OEE enterprise-wide, machine by machine. Frost & Sullivan awarded MERLIN its 2013 Technology Innovation Leadership Award. Microsoft picked MERLIN to be its mid-market ERP machine connectivity solution. Mazak, North America’s largest original equipment manufacturer of machine tools, purchased MERLIN to manage its plant and now offer it on their price list.
For more information, please contact:
Sales: John Rattray, Vice-President Sales, 905-635-0590, JRattray@memex.ca
Investors: Thomas Smeenk, VP Business Development, 905-536-3138, Thomas.Smeenk@memex.ca
Media: Leanne Rattray, Marketing, 905-635-1540 ext. 103, Leanne.Rattray@Memex.ca
“Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.”
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