Wonderware
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| Industry | Software |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Lake Forest, California, U.S. |
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Key people
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Dennis Morin, Phil Huber |
| Products | InTouch, Historian, Intelligence, MES, System Platform, SmartGlance, Alarm Adviser, IntelaTrac, Skelta BPM Workflow, eDNA, Corporate Energy Management, Information Server, InBatch, Recipe Manager Plus, ArchestrA |
| Parent | Schneider Electric |
| Website | https://www.wonderware.com |
Wonderware is a brand of industrial software sold by Schneider Electric. Wonderware was part of Invensys plc, and Invensys plc was acquired in January 2014 by Schneider Electric. Invensys plc. was formed in 1999 by the merger of BTR plc and Siebe plc, and Wonderware was acquired by Siebe plc in 1998.
Wonderware software is used in diverse industries, including: Automotive Assembly, Facilities Management, Food and Beverage, CPG, Mining and Metals, Power, Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Energy, and Water and Wastewater.
Wonderware was co-founded by Dennis Morin and Phil Huber. Both were former employees of another local startup located in Irvine, California. Mr. Morin's founding vision was a Windows-based Human Machine Interface (HMI) that was inspired by an early 1980s video game that allowed players to digitally construct a pinball game. His idea was that operators monitoring factory operations would be more productive if they used a machine that was fun and easy to use. He was terminated from Triconex in February, 1986. In one of the great rags-to-riches entrepreneurial stories of the 1980s, Mr. Morin was 40 years old when he left Triconex. Up until then, the college dropout had either been fired or never been promoted from every job he managed to find. He drove a Taxi in Boston before coming to California, hitching a ride with some friends in the 1970s. He told his idea to a young technology wizard, Phil Huber, who was still employed by Triconex. Mr. Huber was a Penn State graduate who once worked at the legendary Bell labs before coming to California.
Mr. Huber agreed to help his friend develop the HMI product that would be called InTouch and the new company Wonderware. Other friends of Mr. Morin's at Triconex agreed to help on the project. On April 1, 1987, Dennis Morin, Phil Huber, Cole Chevalier, Jerry Cuckler and Bill Urone signed an agreement to start Wonderware. Mr. Morin set about raising money for the venture. A friend, Linda Ellison introduced him to her father who was a local Orange County, California investor. Jerry Spellman was a no-nonsense former World War ll veteran who listened to Mr. Morin's pitch over dinner, and agreed to invest $100,000 to start Wonderware. Other investors, however, insisted that Mr. Morin was not ready to lead the company, so industry veteran Peter Pitsker was appointed the first CEO of Wonderware which began operations in 1989. Another longtime friend of Mr. Morin's, Chet Tomsick was pivotal in implementing the first installation and became a key advisor. Mr. Morin became CEO within two years.
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Wikipedia