On September 6, Bosch Rexroth announced the acquisition of Elmo Motion Control Ltd, an Israeli motion control company, to further strengthen its business layout in the field of factory automation. It is reported that Bosch Rexroth beat Rockwell with a bid of US$700 million to win the acquisition of Elmo.
According to official information, Elmo was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Israel, with factories in Petah Tikva and Poland. It has about 330 employees, one-third of which are dedicated to research and development. Elmo specializes in the production of servo drives and motion controls, which are suitable for industrial robots, collaborative robots, smart warehousing, AGV, ROV, dispensing and other fields.
In general industrial environments, Elmo can provide three series of servo drives: Platinum, Gold and SimplIQ; in the face of extreme environments such as ground, air and underwater, Elmo can provide ExtrIQ series products to meet the high requirements of special industries. Elmo’s new product Platinum series servo cycle time can reach 100 us, with high synergy; at the same time, it can provide fully synchronous servo loop and feature-rich feedback support, and can support up to three kinds of feedback at the same time (two kinds of absolute encoder feedback support).
Factory automation is the focus of Bosch Rexroth’s development in recent years. In 2021, Bosch Rexroth invested 344 million euros in research and development, mainly for the electrification of mobile machinery, factory automation, product portfolio based on the ctrlX AUTOMATION automation platform, and integrated axis systems in the field of industrial hydraulics.
Among them, ctrlX AUTOMATION is an automation system platform developed by Bosch Rexroth. With its Linux-based real-time operating system, continuous open system architecture and network-based engineering design, users can create, add or share automation functions through applications.
Bosch Rexroth believes that Elmo’s drive products have the characteristics of superior performance, space saving and accurate operation. The acquisition of Elmo can complement the product portfolio of Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX AUTOMATION automation platform. This is also an important reason why Bosch Rexroth overwhelmed Rockwell, who offered $600 million, and won Elmo in one fell swoop.
Facing the future, Bosch Rexroth is committed to building a factory of the future in which all production equipment, except for the roof, walls and floors, can be moved and reassembled independently. The core elements of the factory of the future include smart spaces equipped with 5G real-time communication, inductive charging systems, modular assembly lines, mobile production equipment, mobile devices that match combinations autonomously, and mobile devices with digital value streams, resource availability, lead times and cost advantages. Virtual products can fully meet the needs of small batches, large batches, and customized production.
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