64 n STRAP July/August 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com Two score and counting It is four decades since the first issue of Drives & Controls appeared. Since then, we have been charting developments in the industrial automation sector, both in print and online. This supplement marks the milestone, with a look back at some of the highlights of the past 40 years, and some speculation about what the future may hold. It was 40 years ago, in 1986, that the first issue of Drives & Controls appeared. The magazine grew out of an earlier publication, Electric Drives – itself an offshoot of the venerable Electrical Review, that has been going since 1872. The publication was the brainchild of two Electric Review staff members, Mike Douglas and Ken Purchase. Inspired by the first Drives Motors Controls show, held in Leeds in 1982, Mike – then Electrical Review’s technical editor – persuaded the magazine’s publisher, IPC, that that this potentially exciting market deserved its own publication. The first issue of Electric Drives appeared in September 1983, with Mike as editor and Ken selling the advertisements. Initially, they continued to work on Electrical Review as well. During 1984, they produced six issues of the new magazine. But following a longrunning industrial dispute at IPC, the company decided to sell off or close down many of its less profitable publications. Electric Drives fell into this category – very few magazines make a profit in their first year – and Ken and Mike agreed to acquire the publication from IPC. (Later, one of IPC’s publishers reportedly said that selling off the title was the worst decision of his career.) Ken and Mike set up their own company, Kamtech (a name based on their initials) Publishing, and embarked on the steep learning curve of becoming publishers. They worked around the clock, seven days a week, to get their fledgling business off the ground. To help them, they recruited an enthusiastic young Scotsman named Doug Devlin to act as their Midlands sales agent. The first few years were hard, but Electric Drives gradually began to establish itself as a publication that was filling an important niche in the technical publishing market. As the drives industry grew, so did the magazine and within three years, it was delivering its first profits. By 1986, Mike and Ken realised that drives were just part of a much larger market encompassing technologies such as PLCs, mechanical power transmission, fluid power and motion controls. They decided to expand the magazine and to relaunch it as Drives & Controls to reflect the wider scope of its coverage. Another milestone occurred in 1993, when the magazine launched its own exhibition at the National Motorcycle Museum. The show attracted so many visitors on its opening day that queues tailed back onto the nearby motorway, prompting the local constabulary to investigate what was going on. By then, Ken and Mike had taken on Bob Dobson as Drives & Controls’ second editor, allowing Mike to focus on managerial aspects of the business. The magazine continued to go from strength to strength and in 1996, a spin-off publication, Hydraulics & Pneumatics, was born. In 1997, Bob decided it was time to cross the fence to the public relations side of the business, and I moved into the editor’s hot seat. In its 40 years, Drives & Controls has had just three editors. In 2004, Drives & Controls was acquired by DFA Media. The philosophy remains the same – to produce a limited number of publications and events that stay close to the industries they serve, rather than being part of a faceless large publishing organisation. In 2007, DFA added a third magazine, Plant & Works Engineering, to the portfolio and two years later it acquired Power Electronics Europe. In 2015, DFA expanded into a new area when it bought Aftermarket magazine and the Top Technician awards, which catered for independent car service and repair businesses in the UK. In 2017, Drives & Controls was rocked by the unexpected death of Doug Devlin, the magazine’s advertising sales director for more than 30 years, after a short illness. He was 64. The following year, Damien Oxlee was appointed director of sales for Drives & Controls magazine, exhibition and associated products In 2018, the Drives & Controls Show set a new visitor attendance record of 13,518 people – 3% more than the previous event in 2016. But in 2020, the Covid pandemic forced the exhibition and the other co-located shows organised by DFA Media to be postponed, initially to January 2021, and then to April 2022 In 2022, DFA Media Group sold Drives & Controls Show, and its co-located events – Plant & Asset Management, Fluid Power & Systems, Airtech and Smart Industry Expo – to a specialist exhibition organiser, Nineteen Group. DFA kept the associated magazines. For years, pundits have been predicting the death of printed publications as the electronic media take over. But so far, there have been remarkable few casualties among industrial trade publications. We also have a Web site that targets a global industrial audience and has seen a steady growth in visitor traffic in recent years. There is also a newsletter that brings the latest news to more than 18,000 subscribers twice a month. Drives & Controls is also extremely active on social media with more than 15,500 followers on LinkedIn alone. The magazine has charted the progress of the industrial automation and motion engineering sectors from a niche market to one of the most important sectors in industry with products such as drives now being regarded as commodity items. Where we’ll be in another 40 years’ time is anyone’s guess. n Tony Sacks Editor The Drives & Controls Show expanded along with the magazine. By 2018, the show – and its associated events – attracted a record-breaking crowd of more than 13,500 visitors to the Birmingham NEC
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