History
From a two-person control engineering office in Zurich to 12,400 people in 38 countries, without changing the founding idea.
1986: Zurich
Two control engineers, Peter Halden and Anna Reuss, leave a large automation vendor to start a firm with one rule: the engineers who build a system stay available for its working life. The first customer is a paper mill in eastern Switzerland. It is still a customer.
1990s: the service model
The company grows across Switzerland, Germany and the Nordics on plant automation projects. In 1994 it signs its first formal lifecycle service contract, with named engineers and response times in writing, which becomes the template for every contract since.
2004: Pune
Halden opens its first engineering centre outside Europe in Pune, India, under Rajesh Iyer. The centre starts with software for operator interfaces and grows into the group's largest engineering site.
2009: Monterrey
The Monterrey centre opens to serve the automotive and manufacturing customers following their supply chains to Mexico. It becomes the base for the Americas region.
2012: Singapore and utilities
The Singapore centre opens with a focus on utilities across Southeast Asia and Australia. The utilities practice, with its country-by-country regulatory teams, takes shape here.
2016: predictive maintenance
The first predictive maintenance pilots run on customer equipment in Sweden and India. By 2020 it is a practice area; today it is deployed at over 400 plants.
2019: a new chief executive
Elin Haldorsen, who joined as a commissioning engineer in 1998, becomes Chief Executive. The founders step back to the foundation board.
2021: OT cyber security
The OT security practice is formed from the control engineers who had been doing the work informally, in response to customer demand and the arrival of regulation.
Today
12,400 people, 38 countries, 1,900 plants under service, and the same rule from 1986. Read about where we are going on the sustainability and careers pages.