Pi Technology | |
Control Instruments Shurlok (CI Shurlok) |
End 2004
| Ford decided to withdraw from Formula 1 and sold Jaguar Racing to Red
Bull, while Pi Group and Cosworth were sold to private investors Kevin
Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe.
Pi Group maintained its core businesses of Pi Research for motorsport and Pi Technology for commercial automotive applications.
| | 2005
| Established a European sales, engineering support and logistics operation, based in the United Kingdom.
|
| 2001 | Pi Technology experienced considerable growth and established a new
division in Detroit. Emphasis was placed on new projects such as in-car
entertainment systems and driver instrumentation enhancements. | | 2004 |
Significant upgrade to factory.
Shurlok International renamed Control Instruments Shurlok.
|
| | | | 2002 | Major capital investments. |
| Oct 2000 | Pi Group acquired motorsport automotive electronics company, Pectel Control Systems, based at Basildon, Essex.
Pectel produced Engine Control Modules and was integrated into the Cottenham site.
| | 2001
|
Further investments in production equipment to
establish the high speed line to cater for Mercedes Benz and BMW. This
line has inert gas wave solder, selective conformal coating and
dedicated ICTs to produce 500 000 units per annum.
Entered the arena of instrument clusters by designing and producing an
instrument panel for Group Lotus. This technology requires an
anti-static dust free production environment and resulted in Shurlok
purchasing and renovating Plant 2 to set up the clean room area needed
to produce instrument clusters.
ISO/TS 16949 quality rating awarded.
|
| Dec 1999 | Pi Group acquired by Ford Motor Company. Ford's decision to buy the
business was based upon the innovative technology being developed by
the engineers at Pi and on the need to be involved with a company
producing the sophisticated level of electronics required to run
winning cars in top level motorsport and to create leading edge
production vehicles. | | 2000
| Purchased the automotive electronics division of Conlog (Pty) Limited,
making it the largest local manufacturer and supplier of automotive
electronic systems in South Africa.
Expanded floor space by a further 1500m² in response to the tremendous growth in customers and production volumes.
|
| 1998 | Pi Group, with over 250 employees, expanded further by building a
custom designed facility at Cottenham, five miles from Milton. This
facility, Brookfield Motorsport Centre, is the centre of customer
focused operations for the motorsport market.
Pi Sigma launched - a brand new data logging and control system for the professional motorsport market.
| | 1999 | Sold parking access and control.
Purchased Dupec Electronics (Pty) Limited from Delta Motor Corporation. This gave
Shurlok access to OEMs such as VW and GM.
In addition, it gave it access to leading edge engine control
technology enabling it to expand its product portfolio to include body
electronics (comfort electronics), vehicle security systems and engine
management systems.
Major capital investments.
|
1994
| Pi Technology became a separate company ready to service the growing
demand of the engine management market and to focus on the fast growing
development market for commercial automotive electronics.
Pi Technology expanded rapidly to cope with a growing demand for its services. Work included:
- The development of calibration and optimisation tools; and
- The introduction of data logging and communication equipment to the
trucking market, which improved maintenance, diagnostics and fleet
management.
From there, Pi Technology moved to design engineering services and
products for the automotive industry. Its services included the
development of powertrain control modules and interior electronics
(instrument clusters, audio systems and driver aids).
Pi Technology’s design engineering sales were assisted by
product sales - particularly PiAutoSim, which is used to validate
control modules on the bench before they are used on a vehicle. Major
AutoSim customers include Delphi, Visteon, Detroit Diesel, EMD and Mack
Trucks. AutoSim is widely used in Pi racing applications.
| | 1998
| QS9000 quality standard awarded from the SABS. |
1992
| Pi Group established distributors in Germany, Japan, France, Italy and
South America to sell and service an expanding range of data logging
products into the motorsport market.
The business moved to its current headquarters at Milton Hall, on the northern boundaries of Cambridge, UK.
| | 1997 | VWSA awarded Shurlok the VDA6 A rating.
Major capital investments.
|
1991
| Pi Technology founded as a business unit within its sister and founding company, Pi Research.
The original reason for its inception was the design of a
diesel engine controller for the Detroit Diesel Corporation -
specifically to meet new emission regulations.
As a result of the resounding success of this project Pi
Technology decided to secure further diesel projects and continue to
address the demands of the commercial automotive market place in
general.
| | 1995
| Major capital investments.
|
1990
| Pi Research USA established, based in Indianapolis. | | 1993 | Acquired Shurlok, a company specialising in electronic vehicle security products.
Shurlok became such a well known brand name, in the local and
export markets (both aftermarket and OEM) that by 1999 the Company was
generally referred to as Shurlok. |
| 1986 | Tony Purnell founded Pi Research to design and build an innovative wind tunnel instrumentation and control system.
The system achieved significant gains in productivity and accuracy
during wind tunnel testing of racecar designs and led to other
developments for racecar applications.
During the first year of operation Pi Research conceived,
designed and built an onboard data logging system, Pi System IV, which
was subsequently developed to become the de-facto logging system
throughout the world of motor sport.
| | 1993 | Awarded BMW VDA6 A rating.
This coupled with the ISO9001 achieved in 1990 enabled Shurlok to become a major exporter of electronic automotive systems. |
| | | | 1991 |
Installed a fully automated SMD production line and
received first contract manufacturing agreement - to produce Becker
radios for BMW and Mercedes Benz.
|
| | | | 1990 | Achieved ISO9001. |
| | | | 1989 | Company had grown significantly, with full electronic design and manufacturing capabilities.
Developed and supplied vehicle electronic products to BMW South Africa. |
| | | | 1986
| Electromatic merged into Control Instruments. |
| | | | 1969 | Electromatic established as a company that specialised in parking and traffic control electronics.
|