Company Overview
- Engineering Unlimited, Inc. (EU) was started in 1968 by Joe Werner and three partners. Joe eventually became the sole owner. Joe has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and was certified as a Professional Engineer. He had been a design engineer with Honeywell. EU was originally formed to build small electrical control systems for the medical and industrial markets.
- In 1970 EU purchased the Sterling Lock Company as a way to augment the control panel business. These padlocks are designed to be used primarily in the utility market (electrical, gas, water, cable, etc.) as a low cost solution to keep field mounted utility boxes secure.
- The panel and padlock business continued to grow. In the mid 1980’s EU added on the ability to do design and drafting for the control system division with the purchase of AutoCAD Version 2.
- In 1991 EU moved into its new 24,000 square foot manufacturing and office space. This move allowed for the expansion of both the panel and manufacturing business. It also allowed the panel division to take on much larger projects that required more space to cue them up for shipment, as well as to perform functional checkouts and FAT at our facility.
- In 1996 EU did their first large PLC installation including PLC and HMI programming, control panels, and field commissioning – a 500 MTD hot dehulling and solvent extraction system in Zeeland, MI.
- EU continued to work on process plants around the world with installations on five continents including the following countries: Canada, Taiwan, Malaysia, Tunisia, Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, and Chile.
- In 2000 Sterling Padlocks had one million dollars in sales for the first time in the company’s history.
- Types of process plants now include glycerine processing (treatment, evaporation, and refining), preparation plants (hot dehull, cold press, and hot press), solvent extraction (soybean and canola), oil refining (soybean, palm, and canola), biodiesel (preparation & transestarification), and spray drying (soymilk, goat milk, & blood).
- In 2005 the company was officially passed on to the next generation of the Werner family when Bob Werner assumed overall management of the organization.
- 2005 to present EU continues to look for new areas to apply their process and manufacturing knowledge.