MeasureNet Technology Ltd.
MeasureNet Technology Ltd. is a private, limited liability partnership based in Cincinnati, Ohio manufacturing the MeasureNet System: a brand of network-based electronic data acquisition interface for science teaching laboratories.
MeasureNet networks perform data acquisition tasks using a PC-reducing network-based design that enables users to monitor, collect, store, and disseminate laboratory data, as well as share specified laboratory instruments.
History
The company was founded in 1998 by MeasureNet System inventors Robert Voorhees, Professor Estel Sprague, and Paul McKenzie as a spin-off of their research performed at the University of Cincinnati's Department of Chemistry. MeasureNet's first offices were at the Hamilton County Business Center; an incubator adjacent to Xavier University in Cincinnati's Norwood neighborhood. It has since grown to occupy a building in 2008 shared with a regional administrative center of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration at 4240 Airport Road. This facility contains rooms for assembly, storage, and administration, as well as a wet laboratory for product development.MeasureNet's development evolved from the need in the early 1990s to better prepare university chemistry students for the modern workplace or upper-level laboratory that contained a plethora of various electronic data acquisition instruments. Further impetus behind the network-based design evolved from the need to reduce computer maintenance and recurring computer replacement costs associated with personal computer-based interfaces of the time.
Voorhees, Sprague, and McKenzie assembled a small proof-of-concept network in early 1993 in the Chemistry Electronics Shop with the assistance of an internal University of Cincinnati grant. In 1996 the United States National Science Foundation and Procter & Gamble Company funded 10 prototype networks with $190,000 in combined grants for use in the university's freshman chemistry laboratories. Voorhees, McKenzie, and Sprague filed an application for a U.S. patent in August 1996. The first 10 networks of the newly designed system became fully operational for student use in the autumn of 1997. The United States Patent Office then awarded the network a patent in 1999.
Market
An estimated 10,000 students use the system weekly in universities and college science teaching laboratories in the United States and around the world. The company's first major adopter external to the University of Cincinnati was the Chemistry Department at the University of Northern Kentucky. Other Ohio teaching laboratories that employ MeasureNet as of 2008 include Xavier University, Miami University of Ohio, Bowling Green State University-Firelands, Lourdes College, and Mt. Vernon Nazarene College.In 2003 MeasureNet shipped its first network in the Caribbean to Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico in Ponce and the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce. The United States Department of Commerce honored MeasureNet with an Export Achievement Award in 2007 for its ongoing international expansion.
A number of competitors manufacture PC, handheld, and calculator-based interface systems for academic science laboratories. These include U.S.-based Vernier Software & Technology of Beaverton, Oregon, Pasco of Roseville, California, and Texas Instruments of Dallas, Texas.