History

QEI, Inc., founded in 1960 as Quindar Electronics, designs and manufactures Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) equipment and systems. The founders, experts in solid-state theory, initially produced one of the first transistorized families of audio-tone based telemetry and control products which became the industry standard.

Over the next 15 years, the company emerged as a leader in all aspects of the supervisory control business. Starting with its historic tone telemetry models, Quindar continued to add innovative products to provide their customers with "intelligent" Supervisory Control systems. Quindar pioneered the incorporation of microprocessors in remote stations and minicomputers in master stations.

In 1975 the assets, product rights, the Quindar logo and most of the key technical personnel of Quindar Electronics, Inc. were acquired by a new organization, QEI, Inc. QEI continued to market the same products under the Quindar logo with the same dedication and support that had been the trademark of Quindar.

QEI, a full service company, provides total engineering, manufacturing, training, and service support to its customers. Based in New Jersey, QEI enjoys a convenient location at 60 Fadem Road in Springfield. Our offices and factory, in the Union County Industrial Park just off Route 22, are only six miles from Newark International Airport.

QEI is committed to providing the highest level of quality in our products and systems as evidenced by our ISO-9001 certification. The certification processes went smoothly and quickly due to the fact that quality processes had been in place for some time.

QEI, Inc. continues today as a healthy, growing, user-oriented electronics company engaged in the development and manufacture of advanced, solid-state equipment for use in communications, data transmission, supervisory control and data acquisition systems. Our engineers, scientists, and project personnel continue to pursue new technologies and new applications. Their many years of experience in applying a broad spectrum of technologies has enabled QEI equipment to play an important role in the fields of water, gas, power, petroleum, pipeline, railroad, steel, communication, traffic control, and telemetry.

QEI's products and systems are "standardized." They are designed and engineered from their inception to satisfy field operating needs as off-the-shelf items. All are assembled from time-proven components in compact, rugged, interchangeable modules. The standard modules, both hardware and firmware, are assembled to the customer's specifications forming an integrated system which meets operational needs.

QEI personnel work closely with the end user. We establish a direct engineering/service rapport and assure that our customers fully utilize the equipment. To this end, QEI maintains a Customer Service Department that offers technical assistance and technical training. A highly focused department of professionals provides support for new and existing installations. Additionally, these same professionals teach the training classes offered by QEI . This allows the individuals who are "making the product perform" to improve the applicability of the training. The training and assistance offered provide QEI users with the foundation of skills and knowledge necessary to maintain the highest level of system performance.


QEI is supervisory control. As one of the largest independent firms providing SCADA to the utility and communications industry, QEI is large enough to retain the best personnel, yet small enough for our personnel to have a keen interest in our customers' satisfaction. We will continue to innovate with excellence while responding to the needs of the market. You can build your information and control infrastructure with confidence using QEI.

Experience

QEI has implemented many major minicomputer and workstation based systems in its 40 year history. Many of the engineering and technical personnel who pioneered these technologies are still active with QEI and continue to contribute their experience to your Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System. The assignment of highly qualified project engineers to your project will insure its technical excellence and timely completion, and will make knowledgeable support available thereafter.

QEI's first minicomputer system dates back to 1967 when the company shipped a system to monitor boiler fuel gas flows for Florida Power and Light. During the late '60's and '70's, QEI shipped "SuperCompiler" minicomputer based systems to various electric utilities and gas distribution companies. Later load management capability was integrated, marking the first time both functions had been carried out in the same computer. QEI was one of the first to offer on-line editing that enabled the user to configure data collection tasks and to prototype and test new system displays without SCADA downtime. SuperCompiler provided the basis for all of QEI's computer based systems through 1980.

To take advantage of advancing computer technology, the SuperCompiler package was replaced with the QUICS product. This new product was initially offered on Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 Computers utilizing the RSX-11 operating system. As this product has evolved and moved to increasingly more powerful computers, QEI has always ensured that current users could easily upgrade their older QUICS systems. The initial QUICS minicomputer product has moved from 16 bit to 32 bit and today, as TDMS Plus, features the fastest 64 bit machines currently available in the market.


QEI has continually maintained cutting-edge technology in its products. TDMS features an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) and inter-operability with external programs such as GIS, trouble-call systems and engineering analysis. A recent advancement, open database connectivity (ODBC), newly available in TDMS Plus, provides data and control connectivity through a broad spectrum of off-the-shelf applications. Thus TDMS features ODBC and other easy to use tools specifically for connection with established corporate LANs and WANs. TDMS is serious technology combining database, connectivity, and man-machine interface (MMI) capabilities while featuring field-proven system redundancy, serviceability, reliability, and availability.

The TDMS Plus system features a high degree of modularity and standard plug and play design. In both hardware and software the use of standard function modules allows ready configuration for any application without design changes or modifications. This approach achieves the best of both worlds: customization to match the requirements of the application and the reliable, field proven performance offered by standard modules. This cutting-edge, versatile, and general-purpose supervisory control software package offers a greatly improved man-machine interface while retaining many of its time proven features.