The Chinese automation manufacturer, Shanghai Moons’ Electric Co, has acquired the US stepper and servo drive producer, Applied Motion Products, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is an expansion of a joint venture that began in 2007 with AMP and Moons’ sharing technology and R&D.
The Brazilian drive technology supplier, WEG, has opened an automation centre in Germany to improve support for its European customers and to strengthen its automation components business. As well as basing automation specialists at the new centre, WEG is opening a workshop with test stands, a training centre and warehouse space for its automation components.
Global sales of industrial robots hit a new record of 179,000 last year – a 12% increase on 2012 – according to figures released by the International Federation of Robotics. Announcing the figures at the recent Automatica show in Germany, IFR president Arturo Baroncelli reported, moreover, that orders in the first four months of 2014 had “increased remarkably” and the IFR expects 2014 sales to continue growing at a similar pace to 2013.
The Internet of Things (IoT) market will be worth more than $400bn within ten years, according to a new report from a French technology analyst, Yole Développement. It predicts that revenues from IoT devices alone will soar from $9.5bn this year to $46bn by 2024, when the income from associated cloud computing services will be worth $59bn and the processing of IoT data will be worth $296bn.
The European Commission has joined forces with the robot industry and researchers across Europe to launch what they claim is the world's largest-ever programme of civilian research and innovation in robotics. They predict that the €2.8bn ($3.8bn) Sparc programme, spread over seven years, will create more than 240,000 jobs in Europe and to raise EU’s share of the global robotics market from 35% at present to 42% by 2020.
The global market for industrial robots will grow at an annual rate (CAGR) of 5.4% between 2013 and 2020, reaching a value of $41.17bn by the end of the decade, according to a new report from Allied Market Research. The market, which was worth $26.78bn in 2012, is being fuelled by a rapid growth in automation, coupled with a reduction of duties on refurbished goods in the Asia-Pacific region, says the report.
The Swiss wireless specialist u-blox is buying connectBlue, the Swedish supplier of short-range industrial radio modules, for SEK185m ($28m). U-blox says that the acquisition will enhance its portfolio of positioning and cellular wireless communications systems with short-range communication products that cater for the fast-growing Internet of Things market.
A leading European trade body is warning that at row over wireless communications standards in Europe could lead to “major industrial wireless failures”. Gambica, the trade organisation for the UK control and automation industry, predicts that a new European wireless standard could lead to “graceful degradation” of industrial wireless installations.
US manufacturers may be losing up to 11% of their earnings as a result of increased production costs arising from a shortage of skilled workers, according to a new survey from The Manufacturing Institute and Accenture.
After 40 years of painting its robots a distinctive orange colour, ABB has announced that it is changing their standard colour to “graphite white”.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has announced a new efficiency standard for electric motors that, it predicts, will save consumers nearly $16bn and reduce carbon emissions by 96 million tonnes in the period 2030. The new standard, which updates a 2010 version, will come into effect two years after it is published in the US Federal Register.
GE is buying the Canadian cyber-security specialist Wurldtech, for an undisclosed sum. The move is one of several by GE to help protect critical infrastructure and to advance cyber-security efforts globally for key industries.
Google is offering a $1m prize to encourage the development of smaller, more efficient inverters, principally for solar power applications.
In the latest of a series of reorganisations, Siemens is creating a flatter management structure by eliminating its Sector level (including the current Industry sector) and slimming down from 16 to nine divisions. The changes take effect from October 1, 2014.
Universal Robots, the Danish manufacturer of lightweight industrial robots, has moved to new headquarters, with the aim of boosting its turnover to one billion Danish kroner (€133m) by 2017 – a ten-fold increase over the figure for 2013.
