| Back in 1987, the founders of Schmitt Industries conducted comprehensive market
research into industrial manufacturing. In the process, they learned that there
was no simple, reliable solution for in-process balancing of grinding machines.
Precision grinding is a necessary step for nearly every industrial manufacturing
endeavor.
Over the years, our SBS balancer lines have grown to become the world standard
in dynamic balancing. But we've never lost focus of our overriding company philosophy:
we bring to market products customers want.
We currently control over 50% of the U.S. balancer market, and are continuing
to make strong gains within the European marketplace. In 1995, we acquired a former
competitor in Germany, Hofmann GmbH. That strategic business move has accelerated
our market penetration in Europe, while adding key products to our balancer line.
Schmitt balancer systems are production-proven in thousands of major manufacturing
installations from coast-to-coast and around the world, including many of the
largest manufacturing firms.
The latest addition to the Schmitt balancer family is the SB-4500 electronic
control system. This new product enables multi-tasking among multiple balancers,
and serves as an integrated platform for additional machine control products in
the machine tool industry. The SB-4500 increases balancer speed and performance,
and enables vibration measurements down to one-thousandth of a micron.
After conducting careful market research, Schmitt acquired TMA Technologies
in May 1995, and along with it the company's laser light scatter technology. Schmitt
refined this technology, assembled the Schmitt Measurement Systems (SMS) product
division, and developed a new line of non-contact surface measurement products.
All smooth surfaces exhibit some degree of microroughness, even if only at
the atomic level. Using proprietary light-scatter technology, Schmitt Measurement
Systems provides rapid, accurate, repeatable and non-destructive surface measurements.
SMS products are proving invaluable to manufacturers of hard disks, hard disk
drives, and silicon wafers.
In 1997, SMS developed the DTM-2000, an automated production-line system that
enables 100% testing of hard disks and delivers ten times the throughput of conventional
systems. The SMS product line also features light-scatter measurement products,
utilized by NASA and the Departmentof Defense for precision measuring of space
optics, cameras, and telescope lenses.
Schmitt Industries continues to devote significant resources to the research
and development of new products.
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