News » World News Austria's Keba buys Germany’s LTI and Heinz Fiege
The Austrian automation specialist Keba has acquired two German companies – the servodrives manufacturer LTI Motion and the spindles-maker Heinz Fiege – to widen its technology base and strengthen its position in industrial automation. Lahnau-based LTI and Röllbach-based Fiege were previously owned by the German technology group Körber. The purchase price has not been disclosed.
LV motor sales to process sector are booming
Global sales of low-voltage motors to the process sector have been growing faster than those to the discrete industries, according to a new report from IHS Markit. It says that LV motor revenues from the process sector grew by 4% between 2016 and 2017, generating $3.7bn in revenues, and will reach $4.4bn by 2022.
Automation giants join forces to back OPC UA TSN
Visitors to the recent SPS IPC Drives show in Germany witnessed the remarkable sight of representatives from Siemens, Rockwell Automation and Mitsubishi Electric sharing a stage to endorse a single industrial networking technology – the OPC Foundation’s recently announced version of OPC UA which will use TSN (Time Sensitive Networking) down to the field level.
Schaeffler buys Elmotec to launch into motor production
Schaeffler has acquired the German motor-making machinery specialist Elmotec Statomat, setting it on course to become a large-scale producer of electric motors, especially for automotive applications. The company wants to reduce its reliance on producing components for combustion engine powertrains, and to tap into the burgeoning market for electric drivetrains.
Cyber-researchers find ‘major’ flaws in IoT protocols
Cyber-security researchers have found “major” design flaws and vulnerable implementations related to two popular machine-to-machine (M2M) protocols, MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) and CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol). In a joint report, Trend Micro and the Politecnico di Milano highlight what they see as a growing threat of industrial espionage, denial-of-service and targeted attacks resulting from abuse of these protocols.
GE launches $1.2bn IIoT arm and sells 90% of ServiceMax
GE has announced plans to establish an independent company focused on building a comprehensive Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) software portfolio. The company will start with $1.2bn in annual software revenues and a global customer base. It will be an independently-run business with a new brand and identity, its own equity structure, and its own board of directors.
Regal Beloit sells its drives businesses to Sun Capital
Regal Beloit is selling its engineered drives and control systems businesses to Sun Capital Partners, a private investment firm specialising in leveraged buyouts and investments. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Spain’s Fersa Bearings takes control of Austria’s NKE
The Spanish bearings manufacturer Fersa Bearings has acquired 100% of the Austrian bearings-maker NKE, completing a process that started in in 2016, when the Fersa bought 49% of NKE’s shares. With the acquisition of the remaining 51%, NKE is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Fersa and there are two commercial brands: Fersa for the automotive sector; and NKE for the industrial sector. Fersa has not ruled out adding further brands to its portfolio in the near future.
Molex expands into sensing through deal with Contrinex
The electronics and connectivity giant Molex has announced a collaboration with the Swiss sensor-maker Contrinex, under which it will integrate inductive and photoelectric sensors into its industrial range.
Challengers chip away at UR’s dominance of cobot market
The Danish pioneer of collaborative robots, Universal Robots, still dominates the cobot market, but its share is starting to slip – from more than 55% in 2016 to 46% in 2017 – according to a new study by Interact Analysis. It estimates that UR’s market share dipped further in the first nine months of 2018, to around 40%, despite raising its revenues by more than 40%.
Rockwell Automation unveils a new logo and brand promise
At its annual Automation Fair in the US, Rockwell Automation has unveiled a new logo and a new brand promise: “expanding human possibility by combining the imaginations of people with the intelligence of machines”. It says that the promise supports its emphasis on bringing the connected enterprise to life and how, by linking people, machines and data across an entire business, manufacturers can become more effective and productive.
SPS IPC Drives exhibition is changing its name
The organisers of the German automation megashow, SPS IPC Drives, have announced that the event will be changing its name to SPS – Smart Production Solutions, from 2019 – the 30th anniversary of the show’s founding.
ABB invests $150m to build ‘most advanced robot factory’
ABB is investing $150m to build “the world’s most advanced, automated and flexible robotics factory” in Shanghai, China. The new Kangqiao manufacturing centre, located near ABB’s existing robotics campus, will combine the company’s connected digital technologies, collaborative robotics and innovative artificial intelligence research to create “the most sophisticated and environmentally sustainable factory of the future.” It is expected to start operating by the end of 2020.
Boomtime for linear motion products leads to backlogs
A boom era of double-digit growth in sales of linear motion products is coming to an end, with the market about to enter a period of stable growth as demand starts to slow, according to a new analysis by IHS Markit. Global revenues for these products reached a record high of $7.9bn in 2017, and are expected to grow by a further 10.2% during 2018, due primarily to substantial backlogs in orders. Growth is then forecast to slow to 4.5% in 2019.
Germany’s Hahn Group buys Rethink's cobot technology
UPDATED: The German-led global automation and robotics specialist, Hahn Group, has acquired all of the patents and trademarks of the US-based collaborative robots (cobots) pioneer, Rethink Robotics, which recently announced that it was closing after operating for ten years. Hahn has also acquired Rethink’s Intera5 software platform which allows which users to program industrial robots “intuitively”. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
