The WCT team

Originally Published 25 January 2001

Within six months of incorporation Warwick Control Technologies Limited (WCT), a small 4 man software engineering company "spun out" from innovative research by the University of Warwick, has set up a global distributor network that covers more than 20 countries - five times as many countries as it has employees.

Based on the University of Warwick Science Park, the company was launched from the University's Warwick Manufacturing Group's (WMG) Controller Area Network (CAN) Laboratory. It was backed by the University of Warwick, and funding from the Mercia Fund - an ERDF, Wellcome Trust & UK government funded scheme to help small companies in to get started from university research results.

Through its collaboration with the German hardware manufacturer Softing AG, WCT has organised distributors in Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Netherlands, Sweden, the USA and Canada, and Singapore. The distributor in Sweden has four offices covering Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark. The office in Singapore has sub-distributors representing various areas in Southeast Asia, China and Korea. Negotiations are also under way with representatives from Japan, Australia, and South Africa to cover those regions.

WCT's initial aim is to commercially exploit several products based upon Intellectual Property developed in the CAN (Controller Area Network) Laboratory by two of its directors Richard McLaughlin and Kiah Hion Tang.

CAN (Controller Area Network) is a low cost computer network technology developed originally for use in vehicles (for example, communications between engine controls, gearbox controls, suspension controls, etc) and extensively used in many of the production vehicles seen on the roads today, e.g. BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes, Volvo, Peugeot etc.

However CAN is also used in many industrial applications - in fact virtually every industry that utilises electronic control, including agricultural machinery, automation and manufacturing, lifts, marine technology, medical equipment, and much more.

Note for Editors: The four company directors are Richard McLaughlin, Kiah Hion Tang, Chris Quigley and Andy Roxburgh.

For Further information please contact:

Richard McLaughlin,
Warwick Manufacturing Group
University of Warwick
Tel: 024 76 524711
Email: r.mclaughlin@warwick.ac.uk