Tokyo, Japan - September 11, 2012
Yokogawa's CENTUM, the world's first distributed control system at the time of its 1975 release, has been registered by the National Museum of Nature and Science as an Essential Historical Material for Science and Technology.
In fiscal year 2012, a total of 21 pioneering products received this designation; these included the first model of the Sony Walkman and an LCD-equipped digital camera. The stated reason for selecting CENTUM was as follows: "The distributed control system combined continuous control and sequence control and achieved high-level control of plant operations. As a result, instrumentation systems the world over shifted to the distributed control system."
Yokogawa's CENTUM series are functionally fully backward-compatible with previous versions and are still our flagship product, commanding a large share of the world's instrumentation market. We will keep developing CENTUM to help our customers mainly in the manufacturing sector operate their plants efficiently and safely.
Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology
The registration of products as Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology started in fiscal year 2008. The aim is to preserve and protect important scientific and technological achievements that have significant implications for future generations or have had a significant impact on lifestyles, the economy, society, and/or culture.