FARO's over 20,000 installations have made it popular among its 10,000 global customers yet it is undoubtedly its best-selling portable measurement arm that has kept FARO Technologies, Inc. a byword among industries that require precision engineering work.
For over 25 years now, FARO has aimed to provide a dynamic and collaborative relationship amongst those who create and use measurement technologies. It has helped create and brought to the field new innovations by understanding how these measurement technologies are manipulated by its customers, making FARO a pioneer in the Computer-Aided Measurement field.
FARO actually started in 1981 when a friendship was formed between Simon Raab and Greg Fraser while they were working on their biomedical engineering PhDs at Montreal's McGill University. It was not known as FARO then, but Res-Tech instead. The name-change came after two years, when Raab and Fraser began to develop advanced surgical and diagnostic methods-supporting technology and software. The first measurement technology embodied in the articulated-arm was first introduced by FARO in 1984, followed by other models in the years of 1986 and 1988.
FARO is known for creating close interaction with their technology's users. This is attributed to the time invested by FARO's founders in hospitals and in trade shows where they demonstrated their inventions. During that time, the corporation has introduced several patents, some of which are neurosurgery equipment that have been licensed to Medtonic.
As of today, FARO is known for the development of software, imaging devices and computer-aided coordinate measurements which the company also markets. Among FARO's best-selling measurement arms are the CAM2, Gage, Laser Scanner, Laser ScanArm, Laser Track ION and the FaroArm. These technologies have ISO-17025 and ISO-9001 certifications.
As FARO's portable equipment products seem very technical, they are in reality very commonplace and are used almost everywhere from production planning, assemblies and also 3D documentation.
It will come as a surprise but police investigators get a lot of help from FARO equipment when reconstructing crime scenes and accident sites. The arm measurement also let the present and the next generations to learn more about the past because they are used in generating these historical sites' digital scans.
FARO's beginnings into the digital imaging business was in reality influenced by the changing needs of the field of medical technology which saw the company moving from to Florida in 1990. The people running the company realized the similarities between 3D imaging in the medical field to CAD in manufacturing.
The measurement arms were already being used by FARO's medical clients back then and the only thing needed was to transform the arms to the newer market which is exactly what they did in 1994.
FARO's Europe expansion in 1996 was followed by an IPO in 1997 which let the trading of the company on the Nasdaq. Later, it acquired software company CATS and never looked back since then. Technically, the acquisition paved the way for new innovations and an entire new industry for FARO to conquer including the opening of new offices in Asia.
Along with the growth of FARO came the empowerment of its employees and the other parties it dealt with along the way. FARO constinues to strive to look into fresher horizons and proof of that is the purchase of the German company iQvolution AG which has let new markets in the field of Forensics, Architecture, Heritage, Geology and Mining.
Currently, FARO is regarded as one of the most significant companies in the world not merely because it is worth over $150 million but because of its role in the growth of global companies as well including Honda, General Motors, Boeing and Caterpillar among others.
For FARO, it is impossible to look back, only forward.
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