Innovative sorting company among real-world attendees

Press Release

New Zealand, February 12, 2014

Innovative sorting company among real-world attendees at Multicore World 2014

Knowing your oranges and lemons may seem a world away from multicore computers and parallel programming, but there’s a fruitful crossover for Compac SortingEquipment.

It is also proof that the computer advances seen through having many cores on a chip isn’t just for geeks and secluded scientists.

The Auckland-based, globally-focused developer, manufacturer and marketer of fruit and vegetable sorting machines relies on computers, innovation, and clever use of IT and mechanical engineering to deliver world leading technology.

“Processors are becoming more parallel rather than faster, and an increased amount of information needs to be processed in realtime fashion,” says Compac new product and custom software team leader Christian Wuerdig.

“It is important for Compac to invest research into developing scalable and robust software solutions that make use of that parallelism.”

Compac recently installed the world’s largest citrus fruit packing facility at Paramount Citrus, Delano, California. It can sort 4000 bins of citrus a 20 hour day, six days a week, and pack 800,000 bags in that time. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9gGu59sx40&list=TL4Ucrsm0KpAKa3hu561Xz2MxN-NHKj3b3 for a demonstration)

Compac is currently the 19th largest tech company in New Zealand in the 2013 TIN100 index and was the winner of the NZ Hi-Tech Awards in 2012. Its unique carrier system can sort produce by weight, size, colour, shape, density, blemishes, taste, internal characteristics and more in real time.

Compac is one of a number of private companies, as well as New Zealand and overseas researchers, CIOs, CTOs and government parties attending the third annualMulticore World Conference.

The two day event at Auckland’s AUT on February 25 and 26 brings more than 20 experts on multicore computing, as well as the parallel programming required to properly run them.

“This is an opportunity for real-world conversations that will have a major impact on how companies will run their computing operations in the immediate and medium term future,” says Multicore World 2014 organiser Nicolás Erdödy.

“IT professionals and the wider business community risk being left behind as the profession learns how to access the massive computing power of multicore".

“New Zealand, our companies and researchers could ride the wave of knowledge being developed around parallel computing, and both the speaker content and offline discussions will help attendees leverage this knowledge for maximum benefit".

“Equally, not attending will put them in danger of not being part of the future of computing.”

Erdödy says Compac’s presence at Multicore World 2014 is a clear indication that leading companies can see why they need to be part of the multicore conversation, rather than having to ask others about it.

He says the investment of two days of participants’ time promises to be the most fruitful conversations of the year – as demonstrated by Compac’s decision to be at the conference.

ENDS

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