ITT Barton

1925 Barton Instruments is started by Barton Jones and partners to develop forced air transformer coolers.
1943 Barton Jones invents the liquid-filled, dual-bellows unit. This "dry-type," rupture-proof element was a completely new concept in flow, liquid-level, and differential pressure measurement, and led to the heart of Barton's product offering: the Differential Pressure Unit (DPU). The dual-bellows meter continues as the industry standard for mechanical differential pressure measurement.
1949 Barton Instruments Corporation is founded. By now, the company has diversified into the manufacturing of a much wider range of products. One product group however, has remained a constant through the years: the differential pressure instrument line.
1955 Barton Sales Company is created as an independent representative organization. Barton Sales, also located in City of Industry, is today a wholly owned subsidiary.
1963 Barton purchases the Flow Equipment Company, manufacturer of the Floco product line of positive displacement meters used extensively in the oil industry.
1964 Barton purchases two of its sales representatives, Snyder Company (Houston, Texas) and Oilfield Services, Inc. (Calgary, Alberta).
1964 Barton Instruments Corporation is purchased by International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation (ITT).
1977 Barton's business continues to grow along with the expanding energy market, so the company finds it necessary to move to its current quarter-million square foot facility in City of Industry.
1979 Barton United Kingdom becomes a wholly owned subsidiary, responsible for marketing Barton products in Europe and the Middle East.
1985 Barton acquires an additional wholly owned subsidiary in 1985, Stallings and Company, Inc., based in Glenwood, Illinois. This provides Barton with additional sales channels into industrial markets, such as: chemical processing, power generation, nuclear power, pulp and paper.
1998 ITT Barton is acquired by American Commercial Holdings of Lexington, Kentucky, USA, and becomes Barton Instrument Systems, LLC, an independent company, whose sole mission is to provide advanced measurement solutions to the process industries. 2003 Barton Instrument System LLC sold the Barton trade name and its oil and gas product line to Nuflo in Texas. BIS then change their name and became Prime Measurement Systems LLC. The product line purchased by Nuflo from Prime was to continue to be manufactured by Prime for Nuflo, until Nuflo could begin manufacturing for themselves. However, Prime hit hard times and could not survive. Jan 2007 Prime filed for Bankruptcy. Assets were liquidated and the Intellectual property of Prime Measurement was purchased via an arranged 363 bankruptcy sale by Cameron, the new owner of Nuflo. Cameron www.c-a-m.com changed the name to Cameron Measurement. The DP products formally produced by ITT Barton are manufactured by Cameron under the Barton trademark with some exceptions for the discontinued models. Cameron Measurement is believed to be working on its nuclear qualifications to produce the EQ qualified product line for the nuclear industry. But as the date of this entry, it has not been successful in passing all the requirements. The Nuclear Industry is working diligently through JUTG (Joint Utility Task Group) and EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) www.epri.com to solve the nuclear qualified Barton availability issues. Some companies have come forward, saying they can solve the problem by manufacturing reverse engineered Barton differential pressure instrument models. Two of the companies were third party qualifiers, actively participating in the nuclear dedication of commercial grade product for use in the nuclear industry. One of those companies has withdrawn their efforts to manufacture a replacement for the EQ Barton line on rumor that Cameron has completed their qualifications. It is unknown if the other third party qualifier is progressing in effort to solve the issue. A third company, ABBITZ Measurement LLC www.abbitz.com is currently manufacturing reverse engineered drop in replacements for the most popular commercial grade Barton instruments. ABBITZ does not have an Appendix B program and therefore is not able to manufacture EQ qualified products. Any commercial grade product manufactured by ABBITZ would have to go through a dedication process to be used in any nuclear safety related application. Availability of Barton products have been an industry concern for some time now. A company named Differential Pressure Instruments Inc www.ittbarton.com has been actively selling new surplus ITT Barton instruments for 9 years. They also have the ability to repair existing Barton products. Surplus products are part of just about every industry. And are usually good alternative sources for hard to obtain product. There are several companies on the web that repair Barton instruments. The industrial facilities which use Barton instruments should consider using these repair companies to save money and time. Often an outage can be resolved quicker by getting the affected instrument repaired than replaced.Though this particular product is not the only game in town for the measurement of differential pressure, it is one of the most respected and deeply rooted within the global market. And has a very good reputation for quality and durability. Competition is healthy for the economy and provides options to the industry. This product line needs a competitive alternate to resolve the availability and potential obsolescence fears the industry has been expressing. It appears companies are seeing the need, and responding to it by producing comparable products. So don’t write this product off just because of its turbulent past. Cameron is improving their delivery times and working on getting nuclear approvals. ABBITZ is manufacturing quality reverse engineered drop in replacements for various Barton models and providing attractive delivery schedules.