Arcom Control Systems

Founded in 1982, Arcom Control Systems has grown to become one of the leading suppliers of communication and control technology to industry. At its design centres in Cambridge, England and Kansas City, Missouri, Arcom has developed an impressive range of products in the following segments of the industrial computing market:

• Embedded processor and I/O modules - these control a wide range of OEM products, from small instruments and hand-held devices to public information and human-machine interface (HMI) systems. A particular strength of Arcom in this field is its comprehensive support for real-time operating systems - software development kits are available for most industry leading systems, including Microsoft's Windows CE and Embedded NT, QNX, DOS and VxWorks.

• Communications processors ('eSCADA') - using our embedded processors as the hardware platform, Arcom's APEX software kernel offers customers the ability to bring real-world information over the Internet and onto corporate networks or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Initially developed for monitoring applications in the Oil and Gas Industry, these products are increasingly being used to provide real-time operational data from equipment such as vending and gaming machines, environmental sensors, fibre optic repeater stations and telecommunication power supply systems.

• Industrial PC solutions - further complementing the embedded processor range, these enclosed PC products are qualified to CE, UL and other demanding environmental/ EMC specifications for use in applications such as: semiconductor, pcb and automotive manufacturing machinery and transportation, telecommunications and defence systems.

More than 30 new products have been launched in these categories in the past three years, accounting for 60% of current sales. Design innovation is the key to this success: our embedded processor software development kits for Microsoft Windows CE were chosen by both EDN (the leading design journal in the USA) and Cahners Electronics Industry Year Book for their 1999 annual product awards in the 'Hot 100 products' and 'Electronic Industry's Top 10 Embedded Products' categories, respectively.