May News in Brief - Drives and Controls Magazine

May News in Brief

Published: 01 May, 2008

º The Finnish drives-maker Vacon has set itself the target of achieving €500m of revenues by 2012, with an operating profit of more than 14%. The company’s fastest-growing market is for wind turbines, which will represent 6–8% of its revenues this year, and is expanding by 25% a year. Vacon has recently signed a global agreement making it the preferred AC drives supplier to the water treatment market leader, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies.

º GGB, formerly Glacier Garlock Bearings, has opened its first Asian manufacturing site in Suzhou, China. The 4,000m² plant will produce metal-polymer and filament-wound plain bearings. GGB hopes to achieve a similar market share in Asia to those it has in the US and Europe.

º The Murmann family has agreed to sell 17.5% of Sauer-Danfoss to the Danfoss Group, making it the majority shareholder in the global company which produces hydraulic and related equipment. Sauer-Danfoss was formed in 2000 by the merger of Sauer and Danfoss Fluid Power. Since then sales have more than doubled from $850m to $2bn.

º Parker Hannifin has acquired Vansco Electronics, a leader in the design and manufacture of controls, displays, terminals, operator interfaces and sensors. Vansco, whose sales are worth around $180m, employs over 1,000 people in Canada, the US, Finland, Belgium and the UK. It will join Parker’s hydraulic technology business.

º Cognex Corporation has filed a complaint against Germany’s MvTec Software and its US subsidiary, alleging that MvTec’s Halcon machine vision software infringes at least seven Cognex patents. Cognex has asked a US court to stop MvTec making and selling the software, and is seeking damages in compensation for past infringements. The lawsuit also names Fuji America Corporation which sells semiconductor equipment incorporating the Halcon software.