About Pace

Pace

Overview

PACE — the name derives from Process & Control Engineering — is an Australian trade magazine serving the process control, automation and instrumentation industries, published today by Prime Creative Media through its website PACE Today at pacetoday.com.au. It is one of the longest-lived titles in Australian industrial publishing: by the magazine's own published history, it was first published in May 1953, which makes it more than seventy years old. Its subject matter is the technology used to run Australia's process plants, factories, utilities and mines — control systems, instrumentation, drives, sensors, industrial communications and the engineering practice around them.

The title holds formal relationships with its industry: it is the official publication of Profibus Australia, the local organisation for the Profibus and Profinet industrial communications technologies, and the official partner publication of the Institute of Instrumentation Control and Automation Australia (IICA). It also runs the PACE Zenith Awards, an industry awards program established in 2004. The inventory lists the magazine in Melbourne, Victoria, consistent with its publisher, Prime Creative Media, being a Melbourne-based B2B publishing house.

History

The magazine's own retrospective, published on PACE Today in May 2009 under the headline "The dawn of a new era", records that PACE was first published in May 1953. It began life under a different name — Chemical Industry and Engineering — as a journal dedicated to serving the chemical sector, published by E G Holt Publishing Pty Ltd. Its first managing editor and publisher was Eric Greenville Holt. The original name reflects its origins in the process industries; as instrumentation and control engineering spread across manufacturing, food production, water, energy and mining, the title evolved into PACE, taking its name from Process & Control Engineering.

The 2009 article marked a redesign of the magazine, which it noted had been sixteen years in its previous form, and promised expanded coverage of the sectors the title had grown into. Through at least part of the 2000s and early 2010s the magazine was a Reed Business Information title: a 2010 article on the site gives a contact address at reedbusiness.com.au, and the same period saw an editorial handover in which Kevin Gomez became editor, a role he is confirmed in by the magazine's own reporting of its Profibus Australia partnership and by its interviews with industry executives.

At some point in the following decade the title passed to Prime Creative Media. The earliest direct evidence located is from 2018, when a Women in Industry Awards article published on PACE Today spoke on behalf of "the Prime Creative Media team", and the publisher's current portfolio listings continue to include PACE among its publications. No announcement of the change of publisher was located in the sources consulted, so the date of the transfer is not asserted here.

Programming and Content

PACE's editorial covers the process and control engineering beat in depth: instrumentation and sensors, control and automation systems, industrial networking and fieldbus technology, drives and motors, safety systems, and the software layer of modern plants. The website's current sections include Latest News, Technology, Electrical, Sustainability and Government funding, reflecting the widening of the beat from pure plant engineering to energy transition and industry policy.

Recent stories illustrate the mix. In 2025 the site covered the federal government's Solar Sunshot program funding for solar manufacturer 5B, a University of Queensland world record for eco-friendly perovskite solar cell efficiency, MSI's entry into the Australian electric vehicle market, and Science and Technology Australia's Science Meets Parliament event, alongside product news such as trace oxygen analysers for process gas applications. Industry-body content is part of the model: as Profibus Australia's official publication, the magazine carries fieldbus case studies and technical material drawn from that community, and its IICA partnership similarly ties it to the instrumentation profession.

The PACE Zenith Awards are the title's flagship industry program. Established in 2004 — the seventh annual awards were held in 2010 — they recognise projects and people across categories that have included automotive and manufacturing, food and beverage, oil, gas and mining, transport and logistics, water and wastewater, electrical and lighting, energy and power, security and safety, and machine building and systems integration.

Audience and Reach

PACE is a business-to-business title read by the decision-makers of Australia's process and manufacturing economy: control and instrumentation engineers, plant and production managers, systems integrators, and the executives who approve capital spending on automation. Its own Advertise page describes the audience in those terms — a website read by "key decision makers who purchase equipment and processes in the engineering space", across engineering, processing, manufacturing and materials handling. That is the publisher's own description of its audience and is presented as such; the title does not publish independently audited circulation or traffic figures in the sources consulted, and no audience numbers are asserted here.

Its reach is reinforced by its institutional partnerships. As the official publication of Profibus Australia and partner publication of the IICA, the magazine is distributed into the memberships and events of the two bodies that organise its professional community, and the PACE Zenith Awards give it an annual presence in the industry's calendar. Within Prime Creative Media's portfolio it sits among a stable of industrial titles covering sectors from bulk handling to supply chain and workplace safety.

Digital Presence

The PACE Today website at pacetoday.com.au is the title's digital home, carrying news, features, product coverage and the magazine's archive of industry articles, including historical material reaching back to its Profibus partnership announcements and awards coverage. The site was in active production when examined, with news stories published through 2025 — including items dated August 2025 under the byline of Jack Lloyd, whose author address is at the primecreative.com.au domain. The publisher's Advertise page describes the current distribution model in digital terms: PACE is presented as a business-to-business website whose content is distributed through a weekly newsletter and across social media platforms.

A current print schedule for the magazine could not be verified from the sources consulted: the publisher's portfolio listing classifies PACE under book and periodical publishing, and the title was founded and long published as a print magazine, but the Advertise page frames the present-day offer around the website and newsletter. This profile therefore describes PACE's current, verifiable form as the PACE Today website and weekly newsletter, and flags the print question for confirmation at publication stage rather than asserting either way.

Ownership and Organisation

PACE is published by Prime Creative Media, the Melbourne-based business-to-business publisher whose portfolio spans industrial, transport, infrastructure and resources media. The publisher's own LinkedIn company listing, current in October 2026, names "PACE - Process and Control Engineering" among its publications, and the commercial operation of the title sits visibly inside the group: the Advertise page on pacetoday.com.au routes enquiries to a sales manager whose email address is at primecreative.com.au. The title has been in the group's hands since at least 2018, on the evidence of its own site.

Editorially, no current editor is named in the sources consulted, and none is asserted here; the recent byline on the site is Jack Lloyd, whose 2025 articles cover industry news and products. Earlier editorial leadership is documented: Kevin Gomez became editor in 2010, during the period when the magazine was associated with Reed Business Information, and conducted its published interviews and partnership announcements in that role. Commercial enquiries are directed to sales manager Danny Hernandez, named on the Advertise page.

Contact and Availability

PACE Today is available online at pacetoday.com.au, where readers can browse current coverage and subscribe to the title's weekly newsletter distribution. Advertising and media enquiries are handled through the Advertise page on the site, which names sales manager Danny Hernandez, with contact email danny.hernandez@primecreative.com.au and a published mobile number, and offers the PACE media kit on request. The publisher, Prime Creative Media, is based in Melbourne, Victoria, consistent with the location recorded for this title in the directory inventory.