The parent company, The Imperial Electric Company (Pvt.) Ltd., was established in 1931 and has been involved in trading of electrical goods. Soon after the creation of Pakistan, the needs for import substitution was felt and the sponsors of the parent company made the decision to establish a small manufacturing unit for electrical goods.
In 1951, a very modest beginning was made by setting up a small facility located in the basement of the offices of The Imperial Electric Company (Pvt.) Ltd. for the production of electrical accessories. With single minded initiative and efforts of Mr. Ata-ur-Rehman (late), the former Managing Director of the Company, the facilities were continuously upgraded and a full-fledged facility was established in Lahore, Pakistan by 1954 under the same name of Electrical Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (EMCO). The first comprehensive Insulator Manufacturing Plant was in operation with the active participation, know-how and machinery coming from Japan and France.
Keeping pace with the ever increasing and diversified demand of Insulators for national utilities and electrical industries in Pakistan, it was decided in 1965 to expand the facilities to produce all types of insulators including those required for extra high tension lines.
At this stage, Associated Engineers (Pvt.) Ltd., joined hands with The Imperial Electric Company (Pvt.) Ltd. (IEC) to further expand EMCO.
The new plant located at Lahore Sheikhupura Road, Lahore was commissioned in 1968 under the guidance of competent and seasoned engineers of NGK Insulators, Japan. Since electrical ceramics is a very highly specialized industry, requiring skill, experience, time tested formulae and proven know-how, EMCO signed a technical collaboration agreement for fifteen years with NGK, Japan, who are the world's largest and most renowned manufacturers of insulators. With the active support of the personnel from NGK and Pakistani engineers, EMCO was producing quality insulators using mostly local raw materials. The plant is now manned by a team of highly qualified and experienced Pakistani engineers apart from over 600 technicians and workers. The company has a present installed annual capacity for the production of 5000 tons of insulators.
With the untiring efforts of the Chairman, Mr. S.A.Mannan (late) and the Managing Director, Mr. Atta-ur-Rehman (late), the company continued to be one of the best facilities manufacturing quality insulators in the world. In 1983, the company was listed on the Stock Exchanges of Pakistan as a Public Limited Company and was renamed as EMCO Industries Limited.
In addition to electric porcelain, EMCO runs a full-fledged department for the production of chemical porcelain such as acid proof lining bricks, raschig rings, saddles and special refractories. This line is now fully developed to cater to the requirements of beverage factories, milk plants, chemical, edible oil, fertilizer industries, for acid proof wares. EMCO, in 1995, signed a 10 year licensing agreement with M/S. SIEMENS, Germany to manufacture Surge Arresters from 66kv to 420kv (max. system voltage). The product is now being indigenously manufactured by EMCO under its own brand name since 2005.
EMCO, in 2005, signed a know-how contract with M/S. HAPAM B.V., Netherlands, for the manufacturing of Disconnect Switches up to 245kV. This collaboration successfully continued for a number of years with the supply of hundreds of units in the 145kV and 245kV system in Pakistan. In keeping up wih continued innovation, in 2017, EMCO signed another collaboration agreement with Tieling, China for Disconnect Switches up to 245kV and products are now being supplied under the EMCO-Tieling brand name
EMCO firmly believes in a continuous research and development programmes to keep abreast with ever-diversifying requirements of porcelain insulators, chemical porcelain and certain types of customized ceramics. The normal production of insulators requires rigid quality control, with limited performance tolerances allowable. Considerable efforts, as such, are directed towards the production of insulators with better performance characteristics and EMCO has all the in-house testing facilities for this purpose. Moreover, our progress and development is benefited by the rich experience gathered from NGK of Japan. EMCO is still the only unit for manufacturing high tension insulators in Pakistan and is not only supplying the entire requirement of the country, but is also exporting to a number of countries all over the world.
In 2020, EMCO signed a collaboration agreement with Chengdu Taly, China for developing Room Temperature Vulcanization (RTV) coating applications on insulators. A dedicated workshop with over 250 dip coating machines have been set up at EMCO in this regard. RTV coatings applied on Ceramic Insulators provide significantly enhanced insulation properties for High Voltage Transmission Line Insulators, as well as substation insulators and apparatus insulators used in Instrument Transformers, Power Transformers, Surge Arrestors, Circuit Breakers, etc. This collaboration will also provide on site field coating services for areas where existing transmission line insulators or substation products cannot be removed for application of coating.