by Gary Mintchell | Oct 8, 2024 | Business
Blogging, writing to a Web Log, began crossing my radar by the late 90s. I was curious about what was going on. I heard of Dave Winer. He was a software developer. Developer of RSS, something I still use.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of his blog Scripting News. And he is still going.
When we had Automation World up and running in late 2003, I began exploring. My first site was built on Winer’s Radio Userland—Gary’s Radio Weblog. The sales people at Automation World wanted to tie me to the brand, so I renamed it Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward—the title of my monthly editorial.
When I left Automation World for the greener pastures of independent writer/analyst in the industrial and manufacturing market in 2013, the blog was renamed The Manufacturing Connection. The idea was emphasis on Connection. Over 21 years, I’ve written more than 3,500 posts.
The early days of live blogging CEO remarks were exciting. Walt Boyes, then of Control magazine and I had a fun competition going. The market has changed. All companies are now blogging and doing their own marketing. Most no longer support magazines or other media. I followed the fads of IIoT, Edge, AI, Cobots. This technology has become mature and somewhat stagnant. There are just a few software companies cranking out interesting products.
This is all a long time. Social media people came and went from Twitter (I was there in 2008), podcasts are big for a few (mine started in 2007). YouTubers are big in a few markets. It’s all cool. People who could never have had a voice now have the ability to broadcast a message. It’s all good.
Curation is a problem right now. The requirements for discernment on the part of listeners/readers is ever more important. If it’s easy for people to have a voice, it’s also easy for people to broadcast false and misleading ideas.
I’m happy to be able to do this. It’s been fun.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 18, 2024 | Business, Sustainability
A German company called Makersite has developed a product in a genre it calls product lifecycle intelligence focused on managing product sustainability. Managing sustainability for a manufacturing organization begins with product design. Makersite has expanded its strategic partnership with product design software developer Autodesk. Makersite’s sustainability and cost data will now be available to Autodesk Inventor users, enabling engineers to analyze their products’ design, sustainability, and compliance factors during the design phase. Makersite’s platform is already available for Autodesk Fusion users through the Makersite add-on.
Makersite and Autodesk’s partnership empowers product designers and engineers to innovate more sustainable products at a faster pace by putting deep-tier supply chain and sustainability data directly into their hands, inside the CAD tools they’re already using.
Since 80% of an organization’s environmental footprint is determined during the product design stage, insight into sustainability metrics during the product development process is crucial – but can make optimizing products more complex. Makersite’s solution provides AI-enhanced digital twin models of products and their supply chains, sourcing data from more than 140 material, process, and supplier databases. This brings organizations more clarity into their supply chains and insight into their overall environmental impacts.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2024 | Business
As CEO of Starbucks, Howard Shultz’s vision was to make the cafes a warm and welcoming place for coffee and conversation. I’ve noticed for the past three years or so how the new CEO remodeled the cafes to make the furniture more difficult for sitting, turned the air conditioner to a lower temperature, and cranked up the music volume. All things to make them less inviting for customers to stay encouraging rather to “grab and go.”
Sales have not gone well, and suddenly the board replaced the CEO. New Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol outlined his strategic vision for the coffee giant, which includes making cafes more welcoming.
Corporate strategies change frequently.
I think Boeing is searching for some sort of new strategy. Do you think that’s going to happen?
Google and Apple face woes at the hands of the EU. But Google also has a fight with the US Department of Justice on it monopoly in search. I read someone’s analysis that it’s still the best search engine. Maybe. But I don’t think so. There is so much sponsored links and then the primacy of other commercial links (try searching for a particular hotel to check out amenities and then going to page 2 to find it).
I pay for a newsletter from MG Siegler. He writes:
Andy Kessler makes the case that the government shouldn’t break up Google as such break-ups are often pointless. And really, given enough time, the market tends to do the work itself; my point in a related column about Microsoft a few weeks back. Instead, he thinks more companies should break themselves up. By clinging on to the concept of bigness, they hold themselves back in many ways. And while Wall Street likes revenue growth, they also like spin-outs – and perhaps eventual spin-back-ins. It’s a compelling thought in our age of AI – as it was in the Cloud era which is now maturing.
I second the idea of companies intentionally breaking up. Getting bigger doesn’t work in a mature market. The added bureaucracy of size impedes innovation and agility.
This applies to the main market I covered for many years—automation. It’s a mature market. The main innovation comes from acquisitions—and those are becoming more rare. Maybe there is not much room for innovation? I could think of a few things that would shake them up if customers would buy in.
Something to consider.
by Gary Mintchell | May 13, 2024 | Business, Cloud, Data Management, Generative AI, Manufacturing IT, News
Partnering with Microsoft continues to be an important part of manufacturing software development. This news is from Hexagon partnering with Microsoft to integrate engineering with Microsoft 365 to foster data collaboration among engineers. There’s a lot of marketing overkill in the release, but the essence is they hope to improve innovation through engineers and designers using improved collaboration tools.
- Hexagon has contributed significantly to the open-source Fluid Framework data architecture that connects any manufacturing system and will integrate with Microsoft 365 creating agile, simplified workflows and productive collaboration using engineering and productivity software
- Hexagon will roll-out applications that integrate the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to empower experienced employees to be more productive and assist less skilled users
- These innovations form a significant foundation for new real-time co-engineering applications that combine Hexagon’s digital twin technologies with Microsoft Azure
Hexagon and Microsoft have partnered closely on the development and scaling of the open-source Fluid Framework and Azure Fluid Relay service to support the real-time sharing of data across a wide range of manufacturing industry processes and systems, allowing data created in one system to be immediately available to any other person or machine operating in another. Under the new partnership, the Microsoft 365 ecosystem will plug into this data layer, enabling customers to connect their day-to-day office documents and processes with manufacturing tools. This gives teams the freedom to innovate with the tools they already use; for example, tooling cost data from a Microsoft Excel worksheet could be easily shared with a CAM programmer, so simplifying work practices and decision-making between roles.
Microsoft Teams calls can become interactive working sessions, with CAD, simulations or metrology point clouds seamlessly visualised from the source data to allow on-the-spot collaboration and fast, iterative teamwork across disparate engineering and manufacturing functions. Hexagon has already demonstrated this capability in its 3D Whiteboard Nexus tool, which is also now available as an native app in Teams.
Hexagon is working with Microsoft to integrate generative AI models into its manufacturing software, helping users to make better use of their capabilities and analysing existing datasets to learn and suggest the best practices for achieving desired outputs. These AI experiences include contextual advisors, offering expert users productivity-boosting automation while also helping new users to upskill faster and achieve good results with less supervision – a valuable tool as the industry faces a growing skills shortage in many essential roles.
by Gary Mintchell | May 10, 2024 | Business, Commentary, News
I devoted Tuesday this week to exploring Automate, the robot/vision/automation trade show produced by A3. Six miles of walking and many conversations later, a sense of the state of the industry and a few of the players visited me.
One thing to note was where consolidation is and has taken place. The cobot revolution has matured with the small innovative companies acquired by large corporations.
Interesting to delve further into Rockwell Automation’s latest strategy by visiting Otto, the autonomous mobile robot company recently acquired. It is going deeper into discrete manufacturing rather than broader into other technologies—sort of the opposite of Siemens. I wonder if that reflects on the differences of the American and German markets.
Conversations with Beckhoff Automation, Inductive Automation, and Opto 22 revealed how companies can be successful without selling out to a huge corporation. Independents like these still have a place in the market.
Thinking about the market consolidation of the past say five years, I saw this piece from technology writer, thinker, and former VC, Om Malik. I remember reading his columns in Red Herring maybe 20 years ago and have followed his work ever since. Here are some thoughts he had reflecting on Apple’s recent iPad event and the resulting ad. These thoughts are relevant to our market. Think of companies you know who are in the incremental improvement stage.
Apple is no longer making iconic products that are trying to find their place in our lives through clever messaging. The Crush ad is the output of a mega-company that still doesn’t realize that it permeates all aspects of our modern lives, including our retirement plans. When you are as large as Apple (or any other Big Tech giant,) mediocrity of action creeps into every aspect of your business.
Now it is trying to be a company that has to keep selling the newer, more incremental versions of those products to keep growing, so long as it can feed the quarterly earnings monster. It has to keep the stock flying high. Apple is now a $2.75 trillion company — and it has to do everything it can to keep itself there in that elite club. It is getting harder and harder.
Apple is not alone. Its big tech peers Amazon and Google are finding growth much more challenging. They are doing things that make them less likable by the day. And like them, Apple too, is primed to stumble!
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 26, 2024 | Automation, Business, Motion Control, Robots
This acquisition is a very interesting acquisition from several points-of-view. This shows Siemens commitment to factory automation. It hints at entry into the mobile automated robotic space (see the analysis by Vanessa Lopez, Research Analyst, Interact Analysis at the bottom of the story). Even though I don’t see as much in the US as I once did, Siemens is still one of the most active automation suppliers.
Key points from the news.
- Planned acquisition to strengthen Siemens’ position as a leading technology company in the field of factory automation and digitalization
- Strategic addition to the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio
- A business of ebm-papst, a leading supplier of fans and compact and intelligent mechatronic systems, which employs around 650 people
- Major growth opportunities in the field of intelligent, battery-powered drive solutions
Siemens AG has signed an agreement to acquire the industrial drive technology (IDT) business of ebm-papst. The business, which employs around 650 people, includes intelligent, integrated mechatronic systems in the protective extra-low voltage range and innovative motion control systems. These systems are used in free-range driverless transport systems. The planned acquisition will complement the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and strengthen Siemens’ position as a leading solutions provider for flexible production automation.
Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries, said: “Ebm-papst’s innovative portfolio of mechatronic drive systems and its highly qualified people are an excellent fit for Siemens. The acquisition will enable us to tap new business and customer potential in the rapidly growing market for intelligent, battery-powered drive solutions in intralogistics as well as mobile robot solutions.”
IDT products are intelligent, integrated mechatronic systems, which support the automation and digitalization of production processes. This acquisition will be a strong addition to the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. Through their use in mobile robots and driverless transport vehicles as well as in the automation of auxiliary processes, such as the retooling of modern production machines, they are an important lever for greater flexibility and productivity. For this reason, high market growth is expected in this market segment.
The transaction is to be completed by mid-2025, subject to the necessary foreign trade and merger control approvals. The IDT business of ebm-papst is located in St. Georgen and Lauf an der Pegnitz, Germany, and in Oradea, Romania. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
“The acquisition by Siemens is a strategically significant step for us. What our industrial drive technology (IDT) business had lacked until now was a global sales organization for maximum growth. Siemens is a long-standing customer and a company with strong international market penetration and an extensive customer base. The integration that has now been agreed upon will give our IDT business global market access. It will open up new horizons for innovation and further growth,” added Dr. Klaus Geißdörfer, CEO of the ebm-papst Group. “We’ll use the proceeds from the sale of the IDT business to further expand our Air Technology and Heating Technology divisions, to further strengthen our three regions – Europe, Asia and the Americas – and to invest in future fields of our product portfolio, such as digitalization and sustainability.”
Interact Analysis take
Siemens’ recent acquisition takes advantage of surging market
VANESSA LOPEZ, Research Analyst, Interact Analysis
If you’ve been following manufacturing news, Siemens has been making big waves in its divestitures and acquisitions over the last few years. Most recently, it divested several business units worth nearly €3 billion into the newly formed Innomotics, which is currently up for sale.
On March 21st, Siemens announced yet another acquisition. In a press release, the company unveiled its plans to acquire ebm-papst’s industrial drive technology (IDT) business. What makes this move most interesting is the acquisition of ebm-papst’s ultra-low voltage motor offering. In a report published by Interact Analysis in late 2023, we found the market for these products is growing strongly, particularly in applications relating to conveying and mobile robotics.
From a product perspective, ebm-papst’s portfolio is a valuable addition to Siemens’ portfolio. While Siemens has been active in the ultra-low voltage drive market, it previously lacked a complimentary motor offering. ebm-papst, with over $50 million in sales, ranks 13th in the global market. The majority of its revenue comes from the EMEA region, where it holds 10th position in the regional market. Siemens’ acquisition of ebm-papst’s IDT division opens up wider global market access for these products, leveraging Siemens’ extensive global sales channels.
While this could include many pieces of equipment, we believe the primary target is mobile robot applications.
Mobile robots are experiencing early-stage growth. As predominantly battery-powered solutions, these robots typically utilize either 24v or 48v DC motors (what we term ultra-low voltage motors). The demand for ultra-low voltage drives and motors is therefore reflecting this upward trajectory. According to Interact Analysis’ ultra-low voltage drives report, revenues are projected to grow at a CAGR of 25.9%, reaching $3.1 billion by 2027. Similarly, ultra-low voltage motors, extensively utilized in mobile robots, are expected to witness substantial revenue growth, reaching $6.5 billion by 2027, as indicated in Interact Analysis’ ultra-low voltage motors report. This surge in demand can be attributed primarily to the burgeoning adoption of mobile robots, particularly in warehouse automation applications.
Also notable is the rapid growth seen by roller conveyors in both segments of the ultra-low voltage markets under discussion. These products are highly compact and often operate at either 12V or 24V, making them an ideal application for ultra-low voltage motors. Moreover, most conveyor manufacturers purchase motors rather than manufacturing them in-house. Our conversations with ultra-low voltage motor vendors consistently highlighted roller conveyors as a significant area of interest for future growth. Interact Analysis estimates this market will nearly double by 2030.
The accelerated surge in warehouse automation, including the adoption of mobile robots and roller conveyors, presents substantial avenues for Siemens to expand its footprint and secure market share. By strategically aligning itself to meet the escalating demand for ultra-low voltage drives and integrated motor solutions, Siemens is poised to benefit from this surging market. Therefore, we consider Siemens’ acquisition of ebm-papst’s industrial drive technology business as a pivotal and forward-looking investment.
