ATLANTA, GA, June 20, 2001 – Alcan Lawson Mardon, a global leader in flexible and specialty packaging for food and beverages, and a leading supplier of converting film, foil and paper materials, has ordered 15 AVT PrintVision/Genesis defect detection systems for the North American flexible packaging operations. It was announced today by Lance Shumaker, President of Advanced Vision Technology’s (AVT) North American subsidiary. This complements the eight AVT units presently installed in Alcan Lawson Mardon plants worldwide. The AVT PrintVision/Genesis defect detection systems are currently installed on the flexo and gravure equipment at Lawson Mardon's North American production facilities at New Hyde Park, NY; Shelbyville, KY; Charlotte NC; Carson, CA; Bellwood, IL; and Toronto, ONT. In addition to its North American installations, Lawson Mardon also has multiple AVT systems installed in its U.K. plants. Designed for flexible packaging web presses, the PrintVision/Genesis system automatically detects defects on any type of material including transparent films, paper, folding cartons and others. Drawing on proven PrintVision technology, the PrintVision/Genesis system incorporates a unique computing architecture that copes with the troublesome stretching, shifting and vibration of flexible substrates, ensuring that defects such as spots, streaks, color variations, splashes and mis-registrations never escape detection. Since it eliminates the need for fallible human visual inspection during production runs, the AVT PrintVision/Genesis system assures that print defects in flexo, gravure and offset production are detected immediately – before they become costly waste and production problems. The AVT PrintVision/Genesis also offers add-on capabilities for bar-code verification, cold seal inspection, register pre-setting and other related functions valuable for packaging production applications. Ray Brunnelle, Vice President of Operations for Alcan Lawson Mardon North America, observes that AVT systems are playing a key role in reducing defects and increasing productivity at Lawson Mardon's production sites. "We are totally committed to delivering the highest quality products to our customers," he said. "The advanced technology of AVT's PrintVision/Genesis system is providing reliable automatic defect detection for waste reduction and quality improvement with increased press speeds and productivity. We're seeing superior results and more production with far less waste. At every installation site, the systems have performed as we expected, providing an immediate impact on consistency, throughput, productivity and quality control." Mr. Shumaker notes that Alcan Lawson Mardon is one of the largest producers of high quality flexible packaging in the world, and a respected innovator known for R&D that has resulted in the introduction of breakthrough packaging products and applications. "Alcan Lawson Mardon's decision to install the AVT PrintVision/Genesis system throughout its North American operations reflects the company's confidence in our technology as the industry standard for reliable, high-performance automatic defect detection," he said. "The AVT systems have clearly enabled significant performance advances in a production environment that already was highly efficient."