 Margaret Miller Gilson, who had led the company since her father's death, passed away in 1991, leaving the family-owned business without a clear successor. In 1993, remaining family members decide to form an alliance with Illinois Tool Works (NYSE: ITW).
The number of Miller technological innovations soared during the 1990s. Some of the notable (and still highly relevant) innovations include:
 1991: First induction heating systems for preheat or stress relief applications.
 1993: Miller became the first domestic welding equipment manufacturer to be registered to ISO 9001, the most comprehensive of the ISO quality standards.
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 1995: Improved energy-efficiency of the Deltaweld®, Gold Star® and Dimension™ Series welders, which could lower utility bills by hundreds or thousands of dollars per year.
 1996: Miller introduced the XMT® 304 multiprocess inverter, which set the industry standard for inverter reliability and performance (as does today’s XMT 350). The XMT 304 also featured the debut of Wind Tunnel Technology™, which shields electrical components and PC boards from contamination by directing the cooling air in a unique path, improving reliability.
 1998: The first Dynasty™ AC/DC TIG/Stick inverter, improving productivity, quality and puddle control/bead placement in TIG aluminum and magnesium applications.
 1999: Miller introduces the Spectrum® 2050 plasma cutter with Auto-Line™ power management technology. The exclusive Auto-Line circuitry offers simple, direct connection to any 50 or 60 HZ, single- or three-phase primary power level from 190 to 630 VAC, enabling the system to operate in any work situation anywhere in the world.
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Noteworthy Inventions
1990: Tim Berners-Lee implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet, effectively inventing the World Wide Web.
1993: James Dyson developed his bagless vacuum cleaner. The U.S. Air Force launched the 24th and final Navstar satellite into orbit, completing the Global Positioning System (GPS) network.
1994: A heavyweight champ lends his name to a product designed for cooking light, the George Foreman® Grill™.
1995: Yahoo! was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo on March 1.
1995: IBM convened a group of computer industry experts that forced the development of a single standard for an optical storage medium—the DVD.
1998: SaeHan Information Systems released the first commercial MP3 player. The 32MB MPMan F10 could hold only a handful of songs.
1999: The term "Wi-Fi" is first used commercially. |
