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Executive Summary
The Tornado, TurboChef’s award-winning oven, is no stranger to accolades. Having recently won the 2005 Kitchen Innovation award for most innovative foodservice equipment product, TurboChef’s Tornado is used the world over by leading companies, like Hilton Hotels and Disney, focused on speed cooking solutions. The selling point of a TurboChef’s Tornado oven is simple. It heats things up real fast – perfectly cooked, perfectly fresh.

Up to 12 times faster than a conventional oven, The Tornado is designed for organizations that need speed, space and easy-to-use technology to produce the freshest in quality foods. It’s no surprise that every Subway across America uses the Tornado, along with the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

Since its inception in 1991, TurboChef Technologies has always been pioneers in the rapidly emerging world of speed cooking. Utilizing its patented technologies, the Company designs, manufactures and markets a variety of speed cooking solutions. Its vision of being the world leader of speed cooking comes from the renewed commitment to delivering strong competitive advantages to its customers worldwide, everyday.

Developing innovative, superior products, like the Tornado oven, requires a commitment to R&D planning and intellectual property strategy. When James Pool, VP of Engineering, John Gidner, Senior R&D Scientist, and their engineering team at TurboChef needed accurate research and direction in order to develop specific microwave technologies used in the Tornado, they turned to Nerac.

Major Challenge
Long before the Tornado was used in Subways to heat up and toast tasty, fresh sandwiches, Pool, Gidner, and their engineering team were busy inventing the patented technology ultimately responsible for the Tornado’s unprecedented speed and quality. An important component of this technology is the microwave (dual microwave launching system). Working in combination with high speed air, an infrared (IR) browning element and catalytic converter, the microwave provides even cooking from the bottom of the oven cavity.

Developing the microwave technology and patenting it for use was an imperative milestone Pool, Gidner and the team needed to achieve in order make go-forward decisions on finalizing the Tornado oven for commercial use.

To meet these challenges, TurboChef turned to Nerac Analyst John Pires. An electrical engineer with a thorough understanding of technical research, Pires has an in depth level of knowledge in the exact areas of research TurboChef required. Working directly with Gidner, Pires was instrumental in obtaining the original papers on the generalities of the oven’s microwave system written in the late 40s and 50s – obscure documents to find to say the least. Moreover, his analytical approach to finding the right equation sets proved instrumental in helping Gidner, Pool, and team find, develop, and patent the microwave technology used in the highly successful Tornado oven.

“John Pires is extremely knowledgeable and proved exceedingly helpful in identifying vital research used to develop the Tornado oven,” explained Gidner. “Nerac is an invaluable solution for companies looking to determine the technical merit of an invention or concept based on a study of published works and known scientific and engineering principles.”

The Nerac Factor
New Product Development Direction
TurboChef turned to Nerac concerning a highly important product launch. Using his cross-disciplinary knowledge, Nerac Analyst John Pires worked closely with John Gidner, Senior R&D Scientist, TurboChef, to research and obtain various original equation sets that ultimately helped TurboChef develop, patent, and launch an award-winning oven used the world over by today’s leading companies focused on speed cooking solutions.

Significant Time and Money Savings
By turning to Nerac, TurboChef found an authoritative partner they could trust with vital research and IP-related topics without having to hire multiple consulting firms to do the work Nerac provided. Ultimately, this has saved the company a great deal of time, effort and money.