HMS History

The early years, 1988-1994

HMS was founded in 1988 based on a thesis project at the University of Halmstad, Sweden. The initial idea was to develop technology for measuring paper thickness. Founder Nicolas Hassbjer and co-founder Staffan Dahlström had a passion for electronics and embedded software and worked with 8-bit processors and assembler programming.

The early business was expanded to consultant services and hardware manufacturing. This led HMS into industrial communication, which in those days was a greenfield area with new technologies challenging the traditional way to install and operate industrial automation equipment.

Fieldbus history - The start of the first fieldbus era was characterized by new networks like Interbus, DeviceNet and PROFIBUS. Companies such as Atlas Copco and Hitachi started to use HMS to design their industrial communication products for the new fieldbus technologies.

Business was picking up but the young engineering team at HMS asked themselves – “there must be a smarter way to connect industrial devices to different fieldbuses”.

This was the start of a paradigm shift within industrial communication – the Anybus.

Building an international company, 2001-2006

The injected capital allowed a rapid expansion at the turn of the century and HMS grew both in R&D as well as in international sales & marketing. HMS subsidiaries were opened in the USA, Japan and the acquisition of Vcom GmbH formed HMS sales office in Germany. Major investments were made in R&D and the Anybus patent was approved in the US and several other countries.

HMS realized that manufacturing and quality are cornerstones in a long-lasting growth strategy and HMS customers in Japan pushed HMS to new levels of performance.

Milestones

• In 2001, HMS’ new production plant in Sweden is taken into operation and HMS was certified according to the ISO 9001:2000 quality standard, as the first company in Sweden. 
• Over the next years, the geographical expansion continued and HMS opened offices in France, Italy and China.
• The new Anybus CompactCom was released in 2005, based on HMS own NP30 network processor, and 3 new patent applications were filed. 
• Via HMS' subsidiary IntelliCom, new innovative products and solutions for Remote Management (M2M) were developed. 

In 2001, HMS’ new production plant in Sweden is taken into operation and HMS was certified according to the ISO 9001:2000 quality standard, as the first company in Sweden. 

Best in class, 2007-2012

Industrial communication technology was now established and mature, and new investments in the emerging Industrial Ethernet technology called for more performance and functionally. HMS was growing at neck-breaking speed and moved to new head office and factory in Halmstad to expand capacity in R&D and manufacturing.

In 2008, HMS is named "Export Company of the Year" and 1,000,000 Anybus networks interfaces shipped (accumulated). In 2010, HMS introduced a new gateway concept with a simplified configuration, extended certification range, slim housing and many new network combinations.

Milestones

• The geographical expansion continued with HMS offices in India, UK and Denmark. 
• Acquisition of the remaining minority of Intellicom AB brings the Netbiter Remote Management solutions into the HMS offering.
• In 2012, the two-millionth Anybus module is delivered to long-time customer Atlas Copco.

• HMS is congratulated by His Majesty the King of Sweden for being named Sweden's "Export company of the year" in 2008.

HMS is congratulated by His Majesty the King of Sweden for being named Sweden's "Export Company of the Year" 2008

New technology and major investments - 2018 -> 

Since 2018, HMS has continued its journey:

• Opening a Singapore office 
• Launching  HMS Solution Partner Program 
• Acquiring German technology company Beck IPC GmbH.
• Initializing fifth-generation mobile telephony (5G) with several leading telecom companies. 
• Acquiring German WEBfactory GmbH.