♦  Jody Markopoulos has been appointed president and CEO of GE Intelligent Platforms, succeeding Maryrose Sylvester who has become president and CEO of GE Lighting. Markopoulos, who has been with GE for 17 years, has led GE Energy’s Sourcing organisation since 2005. GE Intelligent Platforms supplies software, hardware, services, and expertise in automation and embedded computing.

♦  The global market for bearings will be worth $64.4bn by 2015, according to a new forecast by Global Industry Analysts. It says that industrial machinery dominates demand for bearings and that sales to the automotive sector are recovering after plummeting in 2009.

♦  Rockwell Automation has promoted Blake Moret to senior vice-president of its Control Products and Solutions (CP&S) division and Frank Kulaszewicz to senior vice-president of Architecture and Software (A&S). Both have been with Rockwell for more than 25 years. Another Rockwell veteran, Steve Eisenbrown, has been appointed senior vice-president, Strategic Development, responsible for global business development, aligning strategic investments and initiatives, and RA’s global business process transformation. Since 2007, Moret has been vice-president and general manager of Customer Support and Maintenance. For the past three years, Kulaszewicz has been vice-president and general manager of RA’s Control and Visualisation Business. He will run the A&S business from Singapore.

♦  Schneider Electric is buying US-based Summit Energy Services, a provider of outsourced energy procurement and sustainability services, for $268m. The business employs 350 people in North America and Europe and is expected to generate sales worth $65m this year. It will broaden Schneider’s energy management services.

♦  Global shipments of wireless-enabled industrial products will grow from 1.2m in 2009 to more than 3m by 2015, says a new forecast from IMS Research. It adds that confusion over different wireless technologies remains an issue for end-users and that the lack of standardisation will become important in future applications with long paybacks.

♦  The motion control specialist PI (Physik Instrumente) and the piezo-ceramics specialist PI Ceramic are investing around $13m to expand their piezo-ceramics factory and R&D centre in Thuringia, Germany. The company took on 50 employees in 2010 and expects to hire a further 20–30 this year to keep up with demand.

♦  The US-based automotive motor manufacturer Remy International has filed for an IPO (initial public offering) worth $100m. The company, known for its Delco brand, separated from General Motors in 1995 after operating as an in-house supplier to GM for more than 70 years.