History

Find out how we got where we are today.

2000 : Foundation

SMS was founded in year 2000 with Gordon Watson as Managing Director and shareholder. Gordon is a degree qualified controls engineer with 20 years of experience in Industrial Automation working for 16 years for large industrial companies in a combination of technical role, project engineering and management of contractors. Gordon then spent 4 years working in technical sales for technical controls distributors and worldwide manufacturers and developed a high level of commercial and technical skills in motion control systems.

Gordon saw the opportunity to provide customers with technical sales, control system design, build and commissioning and started SMS to provide this service. Because Gordon had spent the previous two years with Rockwell Automation as a Motion Control specialist SMS became a Rockwell Motion Solution Provider and although the program was discontinued after a couple of years SMS continue to have a great relationship with Rockwell and Routeco and provide a high level of Rockwell Motion Control solutions to a wide range of customers.

2001-2009 : The Start-Up Years

SMS sold and supported Rockwell Automation Products and began developing solutions for the chocolate and nuclear industry.

SMS became a distributor of the Animatics Integrated SmartMotor in 2003 and in 2006 SMS was bought by Animatics based in Silicon Valley. A new company Eurmotion was created to sell and distribute the SmartMotor products to the UK and Scandinavia and SMS continued to develop and integrate machine solutions. SMS becomes part of a worldwide network with partnerships with other similar companies across North America and Europe – giving it access to state of the art products and ideas. Many of these relationships continue to this day.

Continued machine building activities and solution provision and many more customers from different markets were reached during this period.

2009-2011 : SME

Gordon bought back the shares from Animatics and in 2011 Moog Inc. purchased Animatics and SMS became a Moog Distributor allowing SMS to continue to sell and provide the highest levels of support to the SmartMotor along with a diverse range of Moog Industrial products.

Chris Watson joins SMS in 2009 as a Graduate Engineer.

2011-2015 : Widening our offering

SMS continues to develop motion control solutions for a number of key customers and develops a high level of knowledge of Baldor motion control components whilst developing robotic solutions for the conformal coating of electronic circuit boards as well as developing other coating solutions.

SMS expands its range of NTN-SNR linear actuator solutions for larger applications in 2011.

2016-2018 : Expansion

SMS steps up its its direct B2B sales of automation components as distributor and afterservice provider and begins supporting Baldor applications.

2019-2020 : Great New Partnerships

SMS signs an agreement to become an ABB AVP and begins sales of ABB servo drives and motors whilst supporting legacy Baldor products (now owned by ABB).

SMS signs an agreement to become an SMC Platinum Partner and begins sales of SMC Electronic products.

2021 : Today

That's how we got here and are able to provide such great service to our customers and have such a strong product line-up thanks to our partners. Now, are you looking for engineered solutions or automation assistance or do you need components?