Press Release:

July 25, 2007

Unimix Uses NWA Quality Analyst to Build the World's Tallest Building

Portland, OR—Unimix is the largest producer of ready-mix concrete in Dubai where massive amounts of concrete are consumed in one of the world's biggest building booms. A major reason that Unimix has achieved this market position is that it has maintained a corporate focus on process management and improvement.

Unimix is ISO 9001 certified and uses NWA Quality Analyst from Northwest Analytical to monitor and improve its processes, demonstrate capability to meet specifications, provide quality deliverables to customers and maintain its position as the primary concrete supplier to the large tower projects in Dubai. Currently they are the concrete supplier to the Burj Dubai project which will be the world's tallest building and tallest manmade structure with a final height in excess of 800m.

For the strength determination, cubes of concrete are cured in water for 28 days and tested for compressive strength following British standards procedures and then charted. According to Issam Omar Abbas, the Unimix Technical Manager, "If the chart indicates an out of control condition, we drill down to the data and use Quality Analyst to diagnose our problem, help make adjustments and improve the process."

The lab also monitors incoming raw materials coming through an extended supply chain including fly ash, GGBFS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag) and micro-silica. The lab monitors the properties of these materials to enable formulating high performance concrete for demanding projects. Quality Analyst is an effective part of getting this job done properly. As Abbas says, "We had previously used Excel for the Cusum and Shewhart control charts. The NWA software just makes it easier and does the job better."

A case study on the Unimix application is available at:

www.nwasoft.com/appnotes/unimix.pdf

About Northwest Analytical

Northwest Analytical (NWA) is the world's leading provider of SPC software, with more than 50,000 licenses shipped to over 5,000 companies, worldwide. NWA is the global SPC standard for worldwide corporations such as Crown Cork & Seal, Huhtamaki and Unilever. NWA software is recognized for its power, ease-of-use and its simple, tight integration with other manufacturing systems. The NWA SPC software suite includes products such as NWA Quality Analyst®, NWA Quality Analyst WebServer® and NWA Quality Monitor® for manufacturing analytics, plant-floor quality data collection and monitoring, SPC charting, enterprise reporting, and real-time, embedded SPC.

For further information, contact:

Jeffery Cawley, VP Market Development,
Northwest Analytical, Inc.
jcawley@nwasoft.com
888-692-7638 or 503-224-7727
www.nwasoft.com.

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