IHS Engineering Celebrates 40th Anniversary
20 October 1999
IHS Engineering Celebrates 40th Anniversary; IHS Group Expands Corporate Campus as Founding Company Achieves Milestone
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--Oct. 20, 1999--IHS Group's largest division and founding company, IHS Engineering, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this fall.IHS Engineering began in 1959 as a provider of catalog databases on microfilm, and today is a worldwide publisher of Internet-accessible engineering, technical and regulatory information solutions.
As the company continues to grow and change while entering its fourth decade, IHS Group is near completion of its fourth building on its corporate campus.
In mid-November, 250 employees from IHS Group's energy division, IHS Energy, will move from their downtown Denver offices into IHS Group's newest building in the Inverness Business Park in Englewood. At that time, IHS Group will occupy 450,000 square feet in four buildings at the campus.
"IHS Engineering's 40th anniversary is an important milestone, marking both our growth and the successful advancements we've made in utilizing information delivery technology," said Mike Timbers, chairman and CEO of IHS Group. "With the addition of our newest building, we are continuing to create a true campus for our employees and are fostering an atmosphere of cooperation and creativity."
IHS Engineering began 40 years ago by introducing an innovation to the aerospace engineering market: Vendor Specs Microfilm File (VSMF).
Until that time, aerospace engineers needed to maintain vast collections of paper vendor catalogs to find critical parts information. IHS transferred these catalogs to space-saving microfilm and began a paradigm shift in information distribution. The VSMF database is still available today in electronic format and has grown from the original 25,000 pages to nearly three million.
In the early 1980s, IHS Engineering began publishing engineering data in electronic format. By 1995, IHS was publishing information databases accessible over the Internet, making it easier for professionals to access data, and facilitating the frequent updates that are critical to comprehensiveness.
Today IHS Engineering is the world's largest publisher of engineering-related technical information databases. It has converted over 20 million pages of text and graphics into its databases and continues to add more than 2 million pages annually.
Included in the databases are industrial vendor catalogs, industry standards, government parts, electronic components, parts obsolescence information, replacement information and military specifications.
"We provide engineers and technical professionals with the tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently, and they have rewarded us by making IHS a leading information provider," said Robert Wing, president and CEO of IHS Engineering.
Highlighting IHS Engineering's anniversary year are some of its recent accomplishments, including the acquisition of International Computex Inc. and a merger that resulted in the formation of IQXpert, a company that provides next generation component and supplier management solutions.
IHS Engineering also launched two new products on the Internet, Tech Data Xpress (TDX) and the Universal Parts Center (UPC), providing information on more than 350,000 standards and over 58 million parts, respectively.
IHS Engineering and Technical Indexes, IHS's United Kingdom counterpart, recently signed an agreement with the British Standards Institute (BSI) to develop, market and support BSI online products worldwide.
Global Engineering Documents, an IHS Engineering subsidiary, recently began using e-commerce successfully to deliver documents across the Internet, and has also become the exclusive distributor of the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) hardcopy and online products.
Engineering Sciences Data Unit (ESDU), another IHS Engineering subsidiary, created a Web site that allows users to run analysis programs directly over the Internet, eliminating the need for expensive proprietary software.
Industries that are serviced by IHS Engineering database products include the Department of Defense, electronics, aerospace, automotive, petro/chemical, government agencies, architectural/engineering/construction, utilities, computers and telecommunications.
About IHS Engineering and IHS Group
Englewood, Colo.-based IHS Engineering is the worldwide leader for engineering, technical and regulatory information published in a variety of media, from CD-ROM to the Internet and intranet.
IHS Group is a leading international publisher of information databases, with annual sales of approximately $450 million. Its companies serve the vital information needs of customers across the world's technical, business and professional sectors. IHS Group employs more than 3,200 people worldwide.
IHS Engineering, IHS and the IHS logo are registered trademarks of Information Handling Services Inc. Registered U.S. Patent & Trademark office. All other trade names, trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.