founded 1974 as michell instruments ltd. headquarters ely cambridgeshire england key people mike bannister ceo products dew point and relative humidity transmitters process analyzers oxygen analyzers hydrocarbon dew point analyzers website www.michell.com michell instruments consists of a group of eight operating companies located in the uk france netherlands germany italy usa china and japan . the group is involved in the design manufacture and sale of a wide variety of industrial instrumentation including relative humidity dew point moisture in gases and liquids and oxygen analysis . history edit the original company michell instruments ltd was formed in 1974 in cambridge england by andrew michell . in co operation with scientists at cambridge university michell developed a novel aluminium oxide dew point sensor based on the thin film capacitance principle originally proposed by dr a c jason et al. at the torry research institute aberdeen uk in the 1950s . 1 around 1980 michell instruments ltd was awarded a contract by the ec bureau of reference to develop an international transfer standard dewpoint hygrometer to provide traceability for european humidity laboratories against the two pressure humidity generator and primary gravimetric hygrometer operated by the national bureau of standards washington dc usa now known as nist . 2 the project was completed successfully and led to the launch of michell s range of chilled mirror dew point meters . in 1982 the company moved from its original premises in covent garden cambridge to a larger factory in nuffield close cambridge . in 1984 michell was selected by the national physical laboratory united kingdom to supply a transfer standard dewpoint hygrometer model s4000 to its newly built national humidity standard comprising a two temperature humidity generator and a primary gravimetric hygrometer both built and commissioned by sira . the laboratory accreditation arm of npl known at the time as namas and now renamed ukas united kingdom accreditation service launched its humidity laboratory accreditation programme in 1986 and michell s cambridge laboratory was the first to be accredited under the scheme . 3 it remains accredited to date to ukas recognised globally through eal 4 and other institutions for the calibration of dewpoint sensors relative humidity sensors and associated temperature measurement devices . in 1989 michell ltd achieved bs5750 quality accreditation which later came under the iso umbrella as iso9000 series . from the mid 1980s michell instruments began to develop export sales channels and opened its first overseas sales office in frankfurt germany in 1990 . this was followed by the netherlands 2000 france 2003 china 2004 italy and japan 2006 usa 2007 and australasia 2009 . andrew michell sold the business in 2005 to a new private holding company owned by john salmon founder and former chairman of druck ltd leicester uk . since then the group has developed rapidly with the addition of international sales and service operations and the acquisition of new companies and technologies . rense instruments a dutch relative humidity company was acquired in late 2005 and this was followed by the acquisition of the relative humidity operation of coreci from italian automation company gefran spa in 2008 . additionally in recent years the michell group has developed quartz crystal microbalance technology for trace moisture measurement in gases as well as thermo paramagnetic and zirconium oxide oxygen sensors and analysers . in 2007 michell uk re located from cambridge to the nearby city of ely cambridgeshire and into a custom built new factory . references edit a c jason and j l wood 1955 . some electrical effects of the adsorption of water vapour by anodized aluminium . proceedings of the physical society . section b. 68 1105 1116 . doi 10.1088 0370 1301 68 12 315 . development of the primary gravimetric hygrometer for the uk national humidity standard facility ; forton a. g. and pragnell r. f. ; 1985 list of approved laboratories ; publisher british calibration service 1986 eal stands for european cooperation for accreditation of laboratories an arm of european cooperation for accreditation ea . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title michell instruments & oldid 726304680 categories companies based in cambridgeshireelectronics companies of the united kingdomely cambridgeshireinstrument making corporationslaboratory equipment manufacturers navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 21 june 2016 at 09 42 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view