Qualitrol is a

condition monitoring Condition monitoring (colloquially, CM) is the process of monitoring a parameter of condition in machinery (vibration, temperature etc.), in order to identify a significant change which is indicative of a developing fault. It is a major component o ...

technology company headquartered in

Fairport, New York Fairport is a village located in the Town of Perinton, which is part of Monroe County, New York, United States. Fairport is a suburb east of Rochester. It is also known as the "Crown Jewel of the Erie Canal". In 2005, it was named as one of th ...

. Qualitrol manufacturers and distributes partial discharge monitoring, asset protection equipment and information products for the electrical generation, transmission and distribution industries. The company also offers customer training and field services, such as on-site start-up and testing, customized maintenance, product upgrades, troubleshooting, and repair services. It serves customers in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Qualitrol is a subsidiary of the

Fortive Fortive is an American diversified industrial technology conglomerate company headquartered in Everett, Washington. Fortive was spun off from Danaher in July 2016. Mitchell Rales and Steven M. Rales, Danaher's founders, retained board seats ...

industrial conglomerate.

History

George Ford

George Ford, the founder of Qualitrol, was born in 1907 in

Barrie, Ontario Barrie is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada, about north of Toronto. The city is within Simcoe County and located along the shores of Kempenfelt Bay, the western arm of Lake Simcoe. Although physically in Simcoe County, Barrie is politically i ...

, Canada, the son of Thomas Henry Ford and Rachel Mary Jones. His family moved to

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

when he was a child, where he completed his secondary education and then graduated as an engineer from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

. Ford became aware of a major deficiency in the manufacture of heavy electronic transformers and generators of diesel engines. He identified the risks of unexpected accidents while using gas and flame without protective devices. At the age of 38, Ford left his position as Vice President of Engineering at the Rochester Manufacturing Company to establish a new company using seed money from his brother-in-law, Mort Watters, and from his mother-in-law, Rose Gavin.

Founding and expansion

In 1945 Ford founded Qualitrol Corporation in

, and began to provide the electric utility industry with protective devices and monitoring systems. Ford opened a branch of Qualitrol in

Waynesboro, Tennessee Waynesboro is a city in and the county seat of Wayne County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,449 at the 2010 census, up from 2,228 in 2000. History Waynesboro was founded in 1821 as a county seat for the newly created Wayne Count ...

to manufacture valves. Later, Mr. Ford bought Microcontrol in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, a manufacturer of thermostats, and the Dynapar Corporation in Gurney, Illinois a manufacturer of digital controls. In the late 1960s, Ford sold all of his business interests to devote more time to his love of sports.

Acquisition by Danaher

Within two years of Danaher Corporation's founding in 1984, it acquired twelve companies as part of a strategy to enter

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

. In 1986,

Danaher Corporation Danaher Corporation is an American globally diversified conglomerate with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The company designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services. The company's ...

acquired Qualitrol, establishing Qualitrol LLC. Qualitrol became part of Danaher's

instrumentation Instrumentation a collective term for measuring instruments that are used for indicating, measuring and recording physical quantities. The term has its origins in the art and science of scientific instrument-making. Instrumentation can refer to ...

unit, which included

Gilbarco Veeder-Root Gilbarco Inc., doing business as Gilbarco Veeder-Root, is a supplier of fuel dispensers, point of sales systems, payment systems, forecourt merchandising and support services. The company operates as a subsidiary of Vontier and its headquarters ...

's underground fuel storage sensors, Dynapar's motion sensors, and Qualitrol's

pressure Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and e ...

and

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

measurement instruments used on the electrical transformer industry. Danaher spun off several subsidiaries, including Qualitrol, in 2016 to create Fortive.

Acquisition by Fortive

Qualitrol became part of

in July, 2016.

Corporate affairs

At the end of 2007, Qualitrol started to collaborate with

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

-based Neoptix Inc., a manufacturer of fiber optic temperature sensors. Initially, Qualitrol and Neoptix worked together on the integration of data collected simultaneously from traditional methods of temperature measurement and from optical direct hot-spot sensors. Subsequently, Neoptix became a sole subsidiary of Qualitrol. In 2010, Qualitrol acquired

Mississauga, Ontario Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...

-based Iris Power, a supplier of on-line

partial discharge In electrical engineering, partial discharge (PD) is a localized dielectric breakdown (DB) (which does not completely bridge the space between the two conductors) of a small portion of a solid or fluid electrical insulation (EI) system under hig ...

testing of stator winding insulation in large motors and generators, from subsidiaries of Koch Chemical Technology Group, LLC, a Wichita-based multinational. Qualitrol thereby acquired a fleet of portable and continuous instruments and monitoring systems that are integrated into a power plant's

Distributed Control System A distributed control system (DCS) is a computerised control system for a process or plant usually with many control loops, in which autonomous controllers are distributed throughout the system, but there is no central operator supervisory contro ...

(DCS) or a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (

SCADA Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a control system architecture comprising computers, networked data communications and graphical user interfaces for high-level supervision of machines and processes. It also covers sensors and ...

) system.

At the end of 2011, Qualitrol began the expansion of its current production facility in

to .

Subsidiaries

*Qualitrol **Iris Power LP **Neoptix Fiber Optics LP **BPL Global (Serveron)

Executive management

*President: Andrew McCauley *Vice President of Marketing and Business Development: *Vice President of Expert Services: Joseph Mbuyi *Vice President Finance: Shane Murphy *Vice President Human Resources: Tom Hodge *Vice President of R&D : Anis Zribi

Divisions

Asset Protection Asset protection (sometimes also referred to as ''debtor-creditor law'') is a set of legal techniques and a body of statutory and common law dealing with protecting assets of individuals and business entities from civil money judgments. The goal of ...

Transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission *** ...

and

Distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

Condition monitoring Condition monitoring (colloquially, CM) is the process of monitoring a parameter of condition in machinery (vibration, temperature etc.), in order to identify a significant change which is indicative of a developing fault. It is a major component o ...

for

and

for

Generation A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and gr ...

Services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

Products

Asset protection

* Temperature Measurement Devices * Pressure Controls, Gauges, and

Relays A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated switch ...

* Transformer Monitors *

Liquid Level A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, an ...

* Flow *

Gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

*Breaker Monitors, SF₆ Controls and Gauges

Transmission and distribution

* Fault Recording and Fault Location * Power Quality Monitoring * Sequential Events Recording and Alarm Annunciation * Multifunction Software

Condition monitoring

* Transformer Monitors *Breaker Monitors, SF₆ Controls and Gauges *

Partial Discharge In electrical engineering, partial discharge (PD) is a localized dielectric breakdown (DB) (which does not completely bridge the space between the two conductors) of a small portion of a solid or fluid electrical insulation (EI) system under hig ...

* Cable Monitoring

Global operations

Qualitrol also has manufacturing facilities in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, and

Mississauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...

. The Belfast facility focuses on Qualitrol instruments and the Glasgow facility is now defunct and dissolved, merged with Belfast. The Quebec City unit operates as Neoptix and the Mississauga unit operates under Iris Power. Though each location specializes, projects are worked on by teams in multiple locations. Qualitrol adheres to the standards of international organizations, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (

IEEE-SA The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE SA) is an operating unit within IEEE that develops global standards in a broad range of industries, including: power and energy, artificial intelligence systems, ...

) and the International Council on Large Electric Systems ( CIGRE).

Offices

References

External links

Qualitrol LLC
{{Fortive Technology companies established in 1945 Electronics companies of the United States Engineering companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in New York (state) Companies based in Monroe County, New York Electronic test equipment manufacturers 1945 establishments in New York (state) 1986 mergers and acquisitions