CENTUM Distributed Control System
1975
Release of CENTUM, the world's first distributed process control system
Although centralized control systems were still dominant in the industry, there was growing demand by the mid 1970s for distributed process control systems capable of controlling the operation and maintenance of production facilities at our customers’ increasingly large and complex industrial plants and taking a distributed approach to the management of process units, functions, geographic areas, risks, and other aspects of plant operations. We drew on our extensive expertise in analog instrumentation to develop a digital distributed process control system that made use of the latest microprocessors and high speed telecommunications technologies and were the first company to bring such a system to market.