Founded in 1959 as a manufacturing firm specializing in sintered metal filters and filtration elements, the SMC Group entered the pneumatic equipment market in 1961 and has since engineered and produced a wide variety of pneumatic products for the global market. The Group's expertise has continued to increase the range of its products, which now exceed 600,000--including air line equipment, directional control valves, actuators and air preparation equipment. The Group's strengths-offering high quality products at low cost and with quick delivery-enable it to retain a high market share in Japan and compete overseas as a leading global integrated manufacturer of pneumatic equipment even as it evolves into an automatic control equipment manufacturer.