Foxboro was founded in 1908 and soon after became synonymous with process control. Through the years Foxboro developed many innovations and "firsts" in the industry.
In 1990 Foxboro was acquired by Siebe plc of the UK and in 1999 Siebe and British Tire and Rubber, another British engineering firm, merged to form Invensys plc. Today Invensys can offer complete solutions for your process automation needs using the Foxboro, Avantis, Simsci-Esscor, Triconex, Wonderware, APV and Eurotherm brands. As part of Invensys, Foxboro continues to develop new innovations for process automation such as the first Digital Coriolis Flowmeter and the first redundant Switched Ethernet process control system backbone.
Early Years
First single-case industrial recorder-controller (1915)
First pneumatic operational amplifier (1928)
First automatic reset (integral) action on a pneumatic controller and first proportional-
plus-reset controller. (1929-30)
1930-1960
First equal percentage control valve (1933)
First derivative action controller (1940)
First panelboard graphic display (1943)
First Lithium chloride dew point sensor (1945)
First commercial electronic instrumentation (1946)
First pneumatic differential pressure transmitter (1948)
First commercial magnetic flowmeter (1954)
First gas chromatograph applications (1955)
1960-1990
First computer-based data acquisition system (1962)
First Direct Digital Process Control system (1964)
First computerized batch control system (1965-67)
First block (object)-oriented control configuration software (1967)
First split-architecture control system (1971)
First digital serial communications (1972)
First expert system-based controller (1984)
First open process control system with object management (1987)
Object-based communications (1987)
First all-digital intelligent transmitter (1988)
1990-Present
Real-time, sensor-based business measures embedded in a control system (1992)
First certified interface to ERP system (1996)
First Process MRA (previously "NMR") analyzer (1998)
Ethernet "home run" fieldbus (1999)
Embedded MPC (1999)
Invensys announces first unified automation framework (ArchestrA) (2001)
First demonstration of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) using the
ISA S95 model (2002)
