The successful startups expanded their products and markets beyond initially narrow applications and geographies, depending on the real value of the innovation, and also whether or not the founder was able to hire suitable management, sales & marketing leaders to grow the company beyond the initial entrepreneurial stages. The target customers were usually local end-users who provided the opportunity to test new ideas, usually because of specific unmet needs. Many industrial automation companies were founded with innovative developments for niche applications. This model of business is greatly seen in technical sales as well. But the markets are relatively small, specialized and fragmented, and it’s rare that any significant volume results directly from individual products. Industrial instrumentation and controls has always been a hotbed of new products – improved sensors, amplifiers, displays, recorders, control elements, valves, actuators and other widgets and gismos. Trace the roots of all significant automation business segments and you’ll find key people and innovations. But some continue to generate independent growth and success. In a fragmented business, most innovators get stuck at growth plateuas and get bought out. Innovative sensors and actuators came from some key companies.
Several innovative startups developed HMI software for PLCs and indusrial I/O. In the 1970’s, the original DCS was developed in the 1970’s by a team of engineers at Honeywell, and the first PLC was the brainchild of inventor Dick Morley and others. Industrial Automation has a few key segments.
With the technology and automation available to us today, the opportunities to share information are unlimited. The industry realizes that and is working together to figure out how to communicate electronically with each other. A brief of this post first was featured as a guest blog on the Cisco-Eagle blog. Today’s post will focus on the brief history of Industrial Automation, what is Industrial Automation, the current state, and the near future of what industrial automation holds. That is why we also have an interest in not only talking about manufacturing trends and issues, as our customers are manufacturers, but about such great technologies as industrial automation. We empower shippers (manufacturers and distributors mostly in the industrial space) with technology and automation tools to make the shipper more efficient. Editor’s Note: If you are a regular reader of the Cerasis blog, you know that we are a third party logistics company who specializes in transportation management through technology (a web based transportation management system) and managed transportation services to include freight accounting (payment, auditing, invoice consolidation), freight claims, vendor inbound compliance programs, reverse logistics (returns), carrier relations (negotiate great rates for shipping, maintain relationships/rates), and eCommerce freight shipping technology solutions for those who have eCommerce.