SMT Plus was founded in 1985 by our President and CEO James Blankenhorn. In its early years, SMT Plus was a major electronic circuit board design and prototype assembly company, specializing in Surface Mount Technology (SMT) and the miniaturization of electronics. Additionally, SMT Plus provided training, primarily for CAD designers or electronic circuit boards. In 1988, the company’s design and assembly interests were sold to Jabil Circuits, one of the largest electronics subcontract design and assembly firms in the world.

Since 1988, SMT Plus has continued to expand its product and service offerings to include the provision of custom courseware development, generic off-the-shelf instructional kits, generic off-the-shelf web-based courses, various onsite training services and seminars, and numerous books and web-based publications.

In the early1990s, SMT Plus became one of the first companies to provide computer-based courses to the electronics manufacturing industry. It expanded its portfolio of products and training solutions through the development of a library of CD-ROM based courses, with the intent of meeting the changing needs of their domestic and international clients. SMT Plus accelerated the development of this core business function through a multi-pronged strategy, which included the establishment of a Canadian operation, and the development of a team of instructional designers, graphic artists and programmers.

With the introduction of the Shareable Content Object Reference Model or SCORM interoperability standard, and the growing acceptance of web-based learning management systems, it became apparent that there would be a market for Learning Content Management Systems. As such, SMT Plus made the decision to commercialize the in-house systems that had been developed by the Canadian operations, and develop a best-of-class Learning Content Management System, or LCMS. At the same time, SMT Plus was contracted by Fifth Era Inc., a learning company from Calgary, to develop a suite of courses for the mushrooming telecommunications industry. This suite of courses covered a variety of topics, including 3rd Generation Wireless, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), General Packet Radio Systems (GPRS), Fiber Optic Networks and Antenna Design. By the late 1990s, the Canadian operations had developed over one hundred hours of web-based courseware for the telecommunications and electronics manufacturing sector, and various federal government departments.

Today, SMT Plus offers state of the art, custom courseware development services. For more information about our company, our products or services, please contact us. It’s our pleasure and privilege to be of service to you.