The British engineering group IMI is buying the German electric linear motion specialist Bahr Modultechnik Holding for €98m (£83m). Bahr will become part of the IMI Precision Engineering’s industrial automation business.
In October 2019, the Germany machinery safety specialist Pilz was hit by devastating ransomware cyberattack which knocked out its production, IT and Web systems for months in some cases. The company, which refused to pay the ransom, had to revert to using phones and whiteboards. “It almost killed us,” admits joint managing partner, Thomas Pilz. But “we fought back,” he adds. “It was wake-up call.”
Schneider Electric is talking to several potential buyers of its Telemecanique automation and control activities, according to the Bloomberg news service. It says that the business, which could be sold for around $1bn, has attracted interested from several private equity firms as well as the connectors and sensors manufacturer, Amphenol.
ABB has launched a digital service that will help industrial operators to maximise their energy efficiency and boost their sustainability by identifying motor-driven equipment in their facilities with the biggest energy-saving potential. The ABB Ability Digital Powertrain Energy Appraisal service will draw data from fleets of digitally-connected electric motors and VSDs (variable-speed drives) to show where – and how much – energy can be saved by upgrading to the latest high-efficiency technologies. The users can then make data-driven decisions to prioritise their investments.
ThinGap, the Californian manufacturer of zero-cogging slotless motors, is merging with Allied Motion Technologies, the US group that designs and produces precision motion products for the global market. The terms of the merger have not been revealed.
The precision motion control specialist PI (Physik Instrumente) is investing almost $60m in locations around the world to boost productivity, expand production capacity and optimise its supply chains. The German-headquartered company is focussing on growth markets such as industrial automation, semiconductors, photonics and life sciences.
Almost two thirds (65%) of industrial companies around the world are planning to upgrade the efficiency of their equipment to best-in-class technologies such as high-efficiency motors and variable-speed drives as they attempt to move towards net-zero emissions, according to a new survey carried out in 13 countries for ABB.
A British start-up is helping companies to sell items from their stock of surplus spares to others who are looking for particular components. The Web-based business, called Machine Compare Marketplace, is operating globally to link sellers and buyers of surplus stock including industrial controls, sensors, relays, connectors, switches and mechanical components such as bearings, brakes, gears and couplings.
The US bearings and power transmission manufacturer The Timken Company is buying the Slovakian company Spinea, which manufactures cycloidal reduction gears and actuators aimed at precision automation and robotics applications. Details of the transaction have not been released.
SKF and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced a collaboration to “re-invent” the field of industrial machine reliability and predictive maintenance. They plan to deliver an easy-to-use and easy-to-scale condition-monitoring and analysis package that will make the ability to collect and analyse data using ML (machine learning) technologies available to more applications and users.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a service that, it says, will make it faster and easier for anyone to create digital twins of real-world systems such as factories, industrial equipment and production lines. Digital twins are virtual representations of physical systems that use real-world data to mimic the structure, state and behaviour of the objects they represent, and can be updated with new data as conditions change.
The Japanese motion engineering giant Nidec is investing 10 billion yen (around $80m) to double the size of a manufacturing facility in the Philippines where it produces gear reducers – especially, strainwave gears. It is aiming to double its sales of these products to 100 billion yen ($800m) by 2025, thus overtaking the current global market-leader in these technologies, Harmonic Drive Systems, which is also based in Japan.
Sales of collaborative robots (cobots) will grow by 20–30% a year in the period to 2025/2026 – faster than previously predicted – according to new projections by Interact Analysis. It also reports that the average ROI (return on investment) on cobots has come down from five years to just two to three.
The power semiconductor manufacturers Semikron and Danfoss Silicon Power are merging to create a joint business focusing on power semiconductor modules for use in variable-speed drives and other applications such as electric vehicle chargers and renewable energy power converters. With a workforce of more than 3,500, the new Semikron-Danfoss will be owned by the current owner-families of Semikron and the Danfoss Group, with Danfoss being the majority shareholder. They say they plan to invest “significantly” in innovation, technology, and capacity with the aim of at least doubling the size of the business within five years.
Mitsubishi Electric has announced plans to invest about 13 billion yen ($110m) to build a new factory to produce FA (factory automation) products in Japan. It has acquired 42,000m2 site in Owariasahi City, near its main FA plant in Nagoya, for the new factory which is due to come on stream in April 2025.
