(1951 – 2006)
Bill was a true visionary in the field of maintenance software technology. In 1979, Bill developed one of the industry’s first custom maintenance software packages for a large pulp and paper company. This led to the launch of his first company, ShawWare in 1986. Through ShawWare, Bill built one of the first packaged computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS’s) on the market. ShawWare became so successful that it eventually captured over 35% of the market for CMMS products on the IBM minicomputer platform, selling to hundreds of plants around the world.

In 1989, Bill’s entrepreneurial vision led to one of the first client/server Enterprise Asset Management systems – a groundbreaking innovation at the time. All of the ShawWare products shared a key success factor – technological innovation – that made them stand out among competitors in terms of ease of use and flexibility. Attracted to this technological leadership and sophistication, Marcam purchased ShawWare in 1991, with Bill staying on as the head of software development.

In 1997, true to his entrepreneurial spirit, Bill founded Ivara to bring a new enterprise asset management solution to capital-intensive industries. Bill saw an evolving unmet market need for solutions to enable operations, maintenance and engineering organizations to take the next step in achieving peak plant performance – focusing on equipment reliability. Today, Ivara is one of the industry’s leading asset performance management software companies with customers throughout the world. Like all of the products that were developed under Bill’s leadership, the advanced technology of the Ivara solution delights customers with its ease-of-use and functional richness.

While Bill left us early, he left behind a strong and vibrant company. The Ivara team will continue to be driven and inspired by his legacy.

Ivara Establishes the University of Toronto Bill Shaw Memorial Scholarship Fund
In February of 2007, Ivara funded the University of Toronto’s first graduate scholarship in the field of maintenance optimization and reliability. The Ivara Corporation Bill Shaw Memorial Scholarship Fund for the Maintenance Optimization and Reliability Engineering Program (MORE) is named in memory of Ivara’s late founder and president, Bill Shaw. The endowment not only offers on going support of fundamental equipment reliability research, it also honors the memory of Shaw – a true visionary in the field of maintenance technology.

Ivara continually assesses current and new relationships with associations, industries and educational institutions in order to lead the way in asset performance management and reliability optimization