In an announcement at a press conference at the SPS/Drives Fair in Nuremberg on Nov. 23, Beckhoff Automation Managing Director Hans Beckhoff announced a joint venture with Fertig Motors GmbH to develop servomotors specifically for Beckhoff’s PC-based Control and EtherCat–the networking technology championed by Beckhoff.
The first of these products will be presented at the end of 2011. The Motion division is being strategically expanded with new product lines in the category of servo drives, servo terminals and servomotors. Production capacities for Beckhoff drive technology are currently being expanded. The target is to grow the Motion division in the medium term to 25 percent of total sales.
Fertig Motors was established in March 2010 as a joint venture between Beckhoff Automation and Erwin Fertig, the former CEO and founder of Elau. Fertig currently has a team of 15 experienced motor and drive technology developers. The production facility is currently under construction and will begin series production at the end of 2011. “Our goal is to develop the next generation of servomotors: more dynamic, more energy-efficient and available at a low cost. Our team of highly motivated specialists is looking forward to this new challenge and is going about its work with enthusiasm. In order to ensure maximum quality standards and to guarantee high availability, all motors should be “Made in Germany,” stated Fertig.
With the new standard product lines as a basis, the intent is to also develop and manufacture application-specific motors in the future. In this way, Beckhoff and Fertig Motors strive to provide their customers and their customers’ applications with ideally suited motion products. The existing standard servomotor series from Beckhoff – the AM2000, AM3000 and AM3500 – will continue to be expanded even further.
Hans Beckhoff added, “We have always specialised in hardware and software, and naturally we have extensive know-how in drive technology. However, our knowledge will now be decisively deepened with the development of our own motor series, especially in the area of highly dynamic magnetic mechanics and the associated control algorithms. We are delighted with this new partnership and we are convinced that we will be able to offer our customers even more powerful system solutions as a result.”
The Siemens Industry Automation Division at a press conference at the SPS/Drives Trade Fair in Nuremberg on Nov. 23 introduced its new engineering development software with “One Engineering Environment” and “One Software Project” called the Totally Integrated Automation Portal (TIA Portal). The new software engineering framework enables users to develop and commission automation systems quickly and intuitively, which eliminates the traditional time consuming and costly integration of separate software packages. Designed for high efficiency and user-friendliness, the TIA Portal is suitable for both first-time users and experienced users. Furthermore, the TIA Portal will be the basis of all future software engineering packages for configuring, programming and commissioning automation and drives products in the Totally Integrated Automation portfolio from Siemens. Applications released with the initial release include the new Simatic Step 7 V11 automation software for Simatic controllers, and Simatic WinCC V11 for Simatic HMI (human machine interface) and process visualization applications.
The design utilizes one development environment, one unified database and a library of programming and visualization objects. The home screen is a clean, fresh interface that guides the developer through a series of choices for configuration using filtered responses to provide only the most relevant devices and instructions. A private demonstration provided for Automation World showed how easy the drag-and-drop paradigm along with filtered suggestions is for developers designing a new control scheme and visualization for machine builders and implementers. Right now only PLC programming and HMI are included, but variable frequency drives and motion are expected to join the family over the next couple of years.
The new Simatic Step 7 V11 engineering software, based on the TIA Portal framework, supports Simatic S7-1200 controllers, all the Simatic S7-300 and S7-400 controllers, and the PC-based automation system Simatic WinAC. Supporting this wide range of programmable controllers enables Simatic Step 7 V11 to provide a scalable software engineering capability and performance. Benefits of this scalability includes transferring existing configurations of Simatic controllers and HMI devices to new software projects and greatly reducing the time and cost of typical software migration tasks.
The new Simatic WinCC V11 engineering software is also based on the new TIA Portal framework. This includes configuration of machine-level applications using HMI operator panels with support for current Simatic TP and MP model panels, support for the new Simatic HMI Comfort Panels, and for larger PC-based SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) process visualization systems. Configuration and commissioning of the Sinamics inverter drive family is planned in future TIA Portal enhancements.
For those who prefer to listen, here’s my report on the trip to Germany and the SPS/Drives trade fair. Key trends and new products from Siemens and Beckhoff are highlighted.
I’m sitting in the Swiss Air lounge in Zurich before continuing to Nuremberg and the SPS/Drives show. Yes, my life seems to be one airport lounge after another–well, not really.
MESA International, the association that promotes manufacturing enterprise solutions (MES or MOM), has elected a new slate of officers for 2011. You can read all the information at its blog. True to a promised change of direction when Rockwell Automation, Wonderware, GE Intelligent Platforms and Siemens entered the space, members from the user/integrator community are assuming more input and leadership.
I hope that most everyone who reads this blog is a change agent. Have you run into obstacles or backlash from attempted changes? Feel lonely? Well, Michael Hyatt’s recent blog post offered some suggestions to help you prevent or overcome backlash while effecting change.
Lean guru Bill Waddell wonders if everyone’s crazy these days. Instead of dealing with root causes to prevent complaints–or ignoring them by sending complainers through an endless overseas telephone loop, there is now a software application that helps companies “manage” complaints. Whatever that is.
The GreenTech blog discusses a new food safety bill under consideration in the US Senate. If passed, could this be an opportunity for automation software providers?
