Opto 22 Celebrates 40 Years of Automation Innovation

July 29, 2014
Industrial automation manufacturer Opto 22 marks 40 years of operation since founder Robert Engman and his wife Mary Jane started the company in 1974 in Huntington Beach, California.

Industrial automation manufacturer Opto 22 marks 40 years of operation since founder Robert Engman and his wife Mary Jane started the company in 1974 in Huntington Beach, California. Beginning with optically isolated, liquid-epoxy filled solid-state relays (SSRs) which Engman designed on his kitchen table, Opto 22’s range of products grew to include input/output (I/O) modules, computer-based I/O systems, and industrial controllers and software. The products earned the company a worldwide reputation for reliable products with long service lifetimes measured in decades. Today Opto 22 hardware and software products are used by more than 50,000 customers in applications in industrial control, energy management, remote monitoring, and data acquisition.

Opto 22 has often led the way in technology for industrial automation. The company introduced the red-black-yellow-white color coding for digital I/O, developed the open Optomux protocol, and was instrumental in bringing microprocessors into automation—both in PC-based control and in programmable automation controllers (PACs). Opto 22 also designed the first flowchart-based control programming software, brought the first Ethernet-based I/O unit to market, and now leads mobile operator interface development with its easy-to-use software, groov.

Through 40 years Opto 22 has prospered with the same private ownership and the same business philosophy: produce quality innovative products based on open standards, treat employees and customers well, design and manufacture everything in the U.S.A., and provide free product support and pre-sales engineering. Opto 22 products are sold through a global network of distributors and system integrators and used by engineers, technicians, machine builders, and OEMs worldwide.

>> Watch the video that tells you more here

>> For more information, click here

Companies in this Article

Sponsored Recommendations

Food Production: How SEW-EURODRIVE Drives Excellence

Optimize food production with SEW-EURODRIVE’s hygienic, energy-efficient automation and drive solutions for precision, reliability, and sustainability.

Rock Quarry Implements Ignition to Improve Visibility, Safety & Decision-Making

George Reed, with the help of Factory Technologies, was looking to further automate the processes at its quarries and make Ignition an organization-wide standard.

Water Infrastructure Company Replaces Point-To-Point VPN With MQTT

Goodnight Midstream chose Ignition because it could fulfill several requirements: data mining and business intelligence work on the system backend; powerful Linux-based edge deployments...

The Purdue Model And Ignition

In the automation world, the Purdue Model (also known as the Purdue reference model, Purdue network model, ISA 95, or the Automation Pyramid) is a well-known architectural framework...