International Society of Automation - History

History

ISA was officially established as the Instrument Society of America on 28 April 1945, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The society grew out of the desire of 18 local instrument societies to form a national organization. It was the brainchild of Richard Rimbach of the Instruments Publishing Company. Rimbach is recognized as the founder of ISA. Industrial instruments, which became widely used during World War II, continued to play an ever-greater role in the expansion of technology after the war. Individuals like Rimbach and others involved in industry saw a need for the sharing of information about instruments on a national basis, as well as for standards and uniformity. The Instrument Society of America addressed that need. Albert F. Sperry, chairman of Panelit Corporation, became ISA’s first president in 1946. In that same year, the Society held its first conference and exhibit in Pittsburgh. The first standard, RP 5.1 Instrument Flow Plan Symbols, followed in 1949, and the first journal, which eventually became today’s InTech magazine, was published in 1954. In the years following, ISA continued to expand its products and services, increasing the size and scope of the ISA conference and exhibition, developing symposia, offering professional development and training, adding technical Divisions, and even producing films about measurement and control. Membership grew from 900 in 1946 to 6,900 in 1953, and as of 2012 ISA members number 31,000 from almost 100 countries, although it has been as high as 47,000.

In 1980, ISA moved its headquarters to Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina, and a training center was established in nearby Raleigh. In 1997, the headquarters and training center were consolidated in a new building in RTP, where the society's day to day activities are managed by a professional staff of approximately 75.

Recognizing the fact that ISA's technical scope had grown beyond instruments and that its reach went beyond "America", in the fall of 2000 the ISA Council of Society Delegates approved a legal name change to ISA—The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society. Today, ISA's corporate branding strategy focuses exclusively on the highly recognizable letters, though ISA's official, legal name remains the same.

In 2006, ISA became the founding sponsor of the Automation Federation (AF), an umbrella organization under which associations and societies engaged in manufacturing and process automation activities can work more effectively to fulfill their missions. It will coordinate the work of member organizations engaged in advancement of the science and engineering of automation technologies and applications. Along with ISA, the charter member organizations of the AF are OMAC (Organization for Machine Automation and Control), WBF (the organization for production technology), and WINA (Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance).

In recent years, ISA has assumed a more global orientation, hiring multilingual staff and a director of global operations, chartering new sections in several countries outside the United States and Canada, issuing publications in Spanish, and in 2002 ISA elected its first president from outside North America, ISA EXPO.

On October 2, 2007, the Council of Society Delegates deliberated a proposal to change the society's legal name to "International Society of Automation". A majority vote favored the action. However, since the 2/3 majority required for a bylaws change was not achieved, the proposal was not adopted.

On October 13, 2008, the Council of Society Delegates deliberated a proposal to change the society's legal name to "International Society of Automation". The majority vote favored the action and the proposal was adopted.