History of the Industrial Control Committee

THE Industrial Control Committee (ICC has its origins with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). Early activities centered around AIEE Standards. Technical sessions were sponsored at annual AIEE meetings. It is interesting to note that early servomechanism technology centered in the feedback control subcommittees of the Industrial Control Committee. The evolution of these subcommittees into the Automatic Control Group is history. The early AIEE Standards activities of the Industrial Control Committee were well-known. When the AIEE and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) joined to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Industrial Control Committee became a technical committee of the Industry and General Applications (IGA) Group, which became the Industry Applications Society (IAS). IEEE Standards were always a good share of the ICC activities. One well-known ICC sponsored Standard was the IEEE Guide for the Installation of Electrical Equipment to Minimize Electrical Noise Inputs to Controllers from External Sources. This Guide is IEEE Standard 518. The Guide was first published in 1977 after 10 years of effort. This was followed by a five-year revision to include the problems of process computer control applications in industry. The latest revision was published with a hard cover as IEEE Standard 518-1982. Other IEEE Standards activities included extensive activity with the IEEE Standard 15 known also as ANSI C 19-Industrial Control Apparatus. There were also liaison activities with the National Electrical Code (NEC) and National Electric Manufacturing Association (NEMA). The Industrial Control Committee had three subcommittees in the 1960's to late 1970 period that was devoted entirely to Standards. These were the Motor Protection Subcommittee, Test Codes Subcommittee, and the Industrial Control Systems 'Subcommittee. While the ICC supported the technical sessions at all of the IGA and the IAS meetings the strongest effort was in the area of standards. A search of the ICC records shows a cronology of the leadership. This search revealed the following.