Industrial Service Technology (IST) was founded in August, 1982, as a third party maintenance company providing field service and depot repair of industrial electronic equipment and factory automation systems. Early customers included Abraham & Straus, Federal Express Corporation, John Deere, Texas Instruments, Tree Machine Tools, Winn Dixie Corporation and Xycom, Inc.
After five years of growth, IST had expanded beyond the capacity of its rented space, and purchased land to build its own corporate headquarters in Grand Rapids , Michigan. Over the years our customer base expanded to include Ford Motor Corporation, General Dynamics, ALCOA Steel, 3M, Datum, Ltd. and Whirlpool Corporation, as well as many other smaller companies. We continued to grow and added General Motors, ATT (formerly Ameritech) and CVS Drug to our list of satisfied customers.
In 1988, IST was approached by Xycom, Inc., to assume responsibility for Xycom's retired products. Xycom agreed to sell IST the rights to the retired product lines, so customers using these products could continue to receive repairs and replacement parts. This agreement also provided IST with a broad customer base for maintenance and field service. Since that time, additional Xycom products have been transferred to IST's ownership.
In 1989, IST began repairing products for the US customers of Datem, Ltd., of Nepean, Ontario, Canada. Datem, Ltd. manufactured the world's most extensive line of embedded distributed control products based on the BITBUS communications protocol. A year later, Datem, Ltd., filed for bankruptcy, and IST purchased all its product designs from the receiver. IST continues to manufacture and sell these products under the Datem name, and is upgrading the designs to use the latest technology. Our extensive background in service and depot repair allows us to design new products that function reliably in a harsh industrial environment.
By 1995, IST was servicing several major corporations in the area of third party maintenance. We entered into service contract agreements with some of them to facilitate ease of operation, provide preventative maintenance and immediate response to critical situations. This led to the development of control system expansions and customized software that enhanced operations at several sites and locations. IST eventually began major system engineering projects as well as other product line development in the area of controls and system timing.
Today, IST's staff continues to provide manufactured products, systems support, engineering services, contract maintenance, depot repair, field service and major project engineering to hundreds of customers from its corporate office in Grand Rapids , Michigan. Customer referals are provided upon request.