• 2009 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2009/133.html
• 2008 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2008/112.html
• 2007 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2007/108.html
• 2006 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2006/111.html
• 2005 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2005/523.html
• 2004 — www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2005/363.html

The Mechanics Behind the Survey
Readers received e-mail notices, electronic newsletters, used a link posted on www.chemicalprocessing.com or responded to Twitter and Facebook postings to complete the questionnaire. A total of 1,157 readers cast their votes about which vendors they consider technology leaders in 48 different categories. Categories were listed, but respondents had to enter the name of the technology provider in a blank text box. By not providing a pre-selected list of companies in each category, the survey avoided bias.

The rankings show the percentage of total responses in each category that a particular company received. We only list firms that got at least 5% of the votes in a category. Scores within 3% of each other should be considered a statistical tie.

And the winner is…
Amarnath Singh, research scientist at the Dow Chemical Company, is the recipient of an 16GB Apple iPad 2, which was offered as an incentive to participate in the Readers' Choice Awards survey. His name was randomly selected by computer from all of the respondents. Congratulations, Amarnath!

 

Alarm Management Software Percent
Honeywell (Matrikon)    22%
Emerson    16%
Siemens    8%
 
Bearings
SKF    42%
Timken    15%

Boilers/Steam Systems  
Cleaver Brooks    17%
Babcock & Wilcox    9%
  
Catalysts  
BASF (Engelhard)    21%
Johnson Matthey    8%
Haldor Topsoe    7%
Sud-Chemie    7% 
Honeywell (UOP)    6%
 
Centrifugal Pumps  
ITT (Goulds)    34%
Flowserve    9%
Sulzer    6%
KSB    5%
 
Centrifuges  
Alfa Laval    22%
GEA Westfalia    10%
Andritz Bird    8%
Heinkel    5%
 
Compressors  
Atlas Copco    18%
Ingersol Rand    17%

Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS)  
SAP    28%
Maximo    16%
Infor    6%
  
Condition Monitoring  
GE (Bently Nevada)    23%
Emerson Process Management    16%
Rockwell Automation     12%
 
Conveying (Mechanical)   
Flexicon    9%
Hapman    5%

Conveying (Pneumatic)  
Flexicon    7%
MAC Equipment    6%
Dynamic Air    5% 

Cooling Towers   
SPX (Marley)    35%
Paharpur    8%
Baltimore Aircoil    7%
 
Distillation Equipment  
Koch-Glitsch    35%
Sulzer    20%

Dryers  
GEA Niro    10%

 
Dust-Control Systems  
Donaldson Torit    20%
 
Emissions Control Technology 
John Zink    8%

Explosion Protection Systems  
Fike    37%
Fenwall    11%