The innovation of TOMRA’s Common User Interface (CUI), designed by TOMRA Sorting Solutions and Design Partners, was saluted during the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) ceremony in Seattle, Washington, on August 22.
Organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and now in its 35th year, the IDEA competition is regarded as one of the world’s most renowned design events. More than 1,700 entries in 20 categories were in the running this year. Twenty-eight were honored with gold awards, while 53 received silver prizes and 83 got bronze awards.
TOMRA’s CUI earned a silver award in the Digital Design category. Judging criteria ranged from innovation and benefit to the user, responsibility, visual appeal and aesthetics. The user-friendly interface efficiently facilitates flexible sorting adjustments.
TOMRA’s award-winning Common User Interface (CUI) optimizes efficiency and accuracy in material sorting for food processors as well as other industrial sectors including mining and recycling.
“Receiving a silver award in such a prestigious competition is a fantastic endorsement of the quality of design that goes into TOMRA sorters, and elevates the value of our products to customers. The TOMRA CUI is a new and innovative user interface design that makes our sorters more accessible, and easier to use and operate. It provides better control and sorter performance which enhances productivity,” said John McGloughlin, head of innovation, strategy and design at TOMRA Sorting Food.
The CUI has already been implemented in TOMRA’s Field Potato Sorter and Halo, both sensor-based sorters for the food industry, and will be expanded in the rest of the product lines.
TOMRA Sorting Food, a unit of Asker, Norway-headquartered TOMRA Systems ASA, has made over 7,500 installations at food processing factories and the premises of growers and packers worldwide. Its high-performance optical sorters, graders, peeling and process analytics system are on line at potato, vegetable, fruit, nut and seed processing plants as well as seafood, poultry, red meat and other packing facilities.
