ARC Europe Viewpoints

The high-tech company TRUMPF is acquiring 100 percent of Photonics GmbH from Philips, headquartered in Ulm, Germany.  This opens up a new market segment for TRUMPF in addition to its existing business with high-power diode lasers and expands its product portfolio.

There is no question that additive manufacturing has developed into an independent production division, which makes it possible to realize completely new components and structures in small numbers but also increasingly in individualized mass production. Siemens is heavily investing since years into additive manufacturing (AM).

ABB will sell its Power Grids division to Japan’s Hitachi. The Swiss engineering group intends to return 100% of the estimated net cash proceeds of $7.6-7.8 billion (80.1% of the division) from the sale to its shareholders.

Like in the years before the WEKA Media Group organized an Automation Summit 4.0 during the SPS/IPC/Drives fair in Nuremberg, Germany. To cater to the continued interest in topics concerning Industrie 4.0, four sessions were offered on the first two exhibition days: Edge Computing, TSN and OPC UA, IoT Platforms and Smart Sensors. These subjects represented the “hot topics” of the exhibition and all sessions included presentations by well-known companies and industry experts.

To navigate today’s tidal wave of digital transformation and to make disruptive technologies work, manufacturers, municipalities, utilities, and all other organizations need to roll out the right mix of technologies at just the right time. This means driving and managing change in processes, people, ecosystems, and technologies while keeping safety and cybersecurity at the forefront.

ARC Advisory Group attended the IOT Solutions World Conference (IoTSWC) on the grounds of the FIRA Barcelona last October and we were very impressed. The venue is modern and in contrast to automation fairs, there was an atmosphere of quiet and calm, that favored concentration and quality conversations. With over 300 companies and record attendance of over 16000 visitors this may seem counterintuitive, but that was our impression. The growth of both exhibitors by more than 40 percent and visitor numbers by 25 percent is impressive. Even though this was just the fourth edition of the event, the size was one of a grown-up world-scale fair.

ARC Advisory Group Europe and MESA EMEA join forces in providing quality presentations and a workshop on MES/MOM at the annual ARC European Industry Forum (EIF) for several years. Uwe Kueppers, chair of MESA EMEA said: "I believe as MESA we were able of adding valuable content and contributed to an excellent event organized by ARC. We are looking forward to continue our partnership in the future”.

Infor announced the acquisition of Alfa-Beta Solutions, a Dutch system integrator.  Alfa-Beta Solutions, a Gold Infor Channel Partner, specializes on mid-market and large enterprises in the food & beverage (F&B) industry across Benelux and Germany.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was one of the buzzwords on the SPS/IPC/Drives 2018 at Nuremberg, Germany. ARC experts have been keeping an eye on this topic for some time as the topic has become a real hype over the last 12 months. Read our ARC blogs “Artificial Baby!” and “UK – Serious about AI” to get up to speed on recent developments and expect to see more insights from our side in the near future.

To navigate today’s tidal wave of digital transformation and to make disruptive technologies work, manufacturers, municipalities, utilities, and all other organizations need to roll out the right mix of technologies at just the right time. This means driving and managing change in processes, people, ecosystems, and technologies while keeping safety and cybersecurity at the forefront.