AVEVA

Early history

The origins of AVEVA start in 1967 in Cambridge, England, with the establishment of the CADCentre, as it was more commonly referred to, and later formally became. It was a government-funded research institute created by the UK Ministry of Technology, with a mission to develop computer-aided design techniques and promote their take-up by British industry. Its first director was Arthur Llewelyn, who initially contracted out the recruitment and management of specialist staff to ICL.

The centre carried out CAD research, and some of its early staff members, such as brothers Dick Newell and Martin Newell, went on to become well known in the worldwide CAD community. Dick Newell oversaw the creation of the Plant Design Management System (PDMS) for the 3D process plant design. He later co-founded two software companies – Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS) which was known for its Medusa 2D/3D CAD system, and Smallworld with its eponymous Smallworld GIS (Geographical Information System). Martin Newell later went to the University of Utah where he did pioneering 3D solid modelling work; he was also one of the progenitors of PostScript.

CADCentre became a private company in 1983, was the subject of a management buyout in 1994 under the leadership of its first managing director, Dr. Bob Bishop, and became a publicly quoted company in 1996. It changed its name to AVEVA in 2001.

Acquisitions

On 21 April 2004, the company acquired Tribon Solutions, a global supplier of the "Tribon" naval architecture software for shipbuilding and marine design, for US$35 million. The acquisition was completed on 19 May 2004. Tribon was originally developed by Kockum Computer Systems (KCS) for designing commercial and naval vessels. KCS was spun off from Kockums shipyards as an independent company, later renamed Tribon Systems. The Tribon family of programs create a common set of databases containing the design details of the ship.