COADE

In 1984, a new software company called COADE was founded in Houston, Texas. The company focused on a highly specialized, and critical, niche: creating software for engineers who design and build large-scale industrial plants. Their goal was to ensure that the complex engineering data for these projects could be shared seamlessly, improving accuracy and efficiency. COADE developed a suite of powerful tools that became industry standards. Products like CAESAR II for pipe stress analysis, and PV Elite for designing pressure vessels, were indispensable for engineers in the process and power industries. They also created CADWorx, a popular plant design suite that worked with AutoCAD, making sophisticated 3D design more accessible for a wide range of projects. A pivotal chapter in the company's journey came in January 2010. Intergraph, a major player in enterprise engineering software, announced its acquisition of COADE. Led by its then-President and CEO, Thomas Van Laan, COADE was seen as a strategic asset. The deal, Intergraph's largest in that market, was designed to merge COADE's best-in-class analysis tools with Intergraph's own SmartPlant Enterprise suite. This move brought COADE's powerful and widely adopted software into a larger ecosystem, solidifying the combined entity's leadership in the industrial engineering software market.