April 4, 2012

A&D Receives the Outstanding New Product Award (Kardux Cup) for
the Second Time Running – This Time for the BM-20 Microbalance!
It is like seeing an ugly duckling finally transformed into a beautiful swan. Our BM-20
Microbalance daringly challenged in many respects the traditional notion of how
microbalances should look and be made, and yet it brought another prestigious Kardux Cup
to A&D Engineering (ADE), our US subsidiary, at the January 2012 ISWM conference held inLas Vegas, Nevada. We are glad that to discerning eyes, the BM-20 was unique for very goodreasons. Our users will certainly agree.

The Outstanding New Product Award (Kardux Cup) wasestablished in 1996 by the International Society of Weighing
and Measurement (ISWM) “to recognize a company, group orindividual for the most outstanding new technical achievementof the past two years that positively impacts the weighing andmeasurement industry.” Currently, the award is given every
two years at the bi-annual ISWM conference. A&D became thefirst in the award’s history to win it twice in a row; for theAD-4212B-PT Pipette Accuracy Tester in 2010, and for theBM-20 Microbalance in 2012.

As with our other products, in developing the BM-20, we placed particular emphasis on highutility for actual users as well as measurement performance while removing fancy (yet oftenredundant) features in order to make the microbalance affordable. For example, the BM-20
has an embedded ionizer to instantly eliminate static electricity, a dangerous source of error
in precision weighing, from the sample. The ionizer is fanless and moves little air, so users
can easily neutralize static in even the finest of powders without having them blow away.
Another common source of error is convection flows and drafts in the weighing chamber.
Unlike conventional microbalances that adopt a small inner or separate chamber as acountermeasure, compromising the balance’s operability, we maintained a large working
space by means of double-ring breeze break and perpendicular side panels to block air
currents. Furthermore, users can access the weighing chamber by using their left hand toopen and close the right door (and vice versa), which makes their work more efficient.
In addition to the balance itself, we thought about thegeneral weighing environment, which is why theBM-20 has on-board sensors to assess the setup
environment conditions. Moreover, we provide anoptional, external tabletop breeze break and ananti-vibration table to further stabilize measurements.
The BM-20 also comes with a handy weighing datalogger as well as pans and holders for special
BM-20 with tabletop breeze break
and anti-vibration tableapplications in order to facilitate users’ total weighing
practices.

We believe that all these features (and others not mentioned here due to space limitations)contributed to the BM-20 being chosen as this year’s winner by the Outstanding New ProductCommittee, even though the BM-20 is our first microbalance to be put on the market.
“It is truly an honor for us to win this award from the Kardux Cup Committee and the ISWM.
There are many outstanding products produced by fellow ISWM manufacturer members;
we’re just happy to be recognized amongst them,” said Frank Marrone, Senior VP of ADE.
His feeling is also ours here at headquarters!

Michihito Matsuura
From Weighing Product Sales Team,
A&D Company, Limited* The BM-20, having a readability of 1 μg and capacity of 22 g, is the flagship of our BM seriesof six analytical balances: http://www.aandd.jp/products/weighing/balance/analytical/bm.html** Additional details on the Outstanding New Product Award (Kardux Cup) can be found on
the dedicated page at the ISWM site: http://www.iswm.org/page13205846.aspx