This achievement has won Ascon Spa the award for the - Best application of Process Automation - at the recent BIAS Exibition .The application is for the cold rooms of a food processing plant and is a perfect example of how a modern control & automation system can make an important contribution to energy conservation and protection of the environment. The prize was presented to Mr. Bruno Zecchel, General Manager of Ascon Spa , at the recent BIAS exhibition in Milan. The jury making the award was made up of the editors of the most prominent Italian automation and instrumentation magazines. The plant has doubled its production of high quality food products without a substantial increase in energy consumption. The control system is based on the use of the Ascon’s AC Station, a Multifunction Programmable Loop Controller. The system integrator is the company Ortiz and the end user is FRA.VA. The application raised the interest of two magazines: Process Cooling & Equipment in the U.S.A. and Automazione e Strumentazione in Italy which wrote the articles Improved control for High-efficiency Cooling and Risparmio energetico e refrigerazione industriale (Energy saving in industrial refrigeration) respectively. The latter article enabled Ascon to win the Award. As a natural evolution of the AC Station, Ascon has recently launched the compact version of the company's Programmable Automation Controller called Sigma microPAC. The product is sized to suit the most common applications in industries such as food & beverage, plastic, chemicals & pharmaceutics and machines such as boilers, furnaces and kilns.