by Gary Mintchell | Sep 18, 2015 | Automation, News
Acquisitions are always interesting news. They always signify something about the industry. Sometimes it’s consolidation in a mature industry. Sometimes it’s larger companies growing, adding technology, or adding talent.
In today’s news, there is some of each.Remember when the robot and vision markets were thriving—especially the small SCARA robots? Those days are long over. The price of vision systems plummeted. Just look at the capabilities of the camera and software in your smart phone.
The first announcement is that Omron is acquiring Adept Technology. The second is Emerson Process Management adding some interesting technology to its portfolio.
The only thing surprising to me is the acquirer, not the fact that Adept is being acquired. Those cards have been played a long time ago. Omron Corporation and Adept Technology, Inc. announced that the two companies have entered into an agreement whereby Omron will acquire Adept.
Omron plans to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Adept common stock through an all cash tender offer followed by a second-step merger. It will offer Adept investors $13.00 per share of Adept common stock, which represents a 63% premium over the closing price for Adept’s common stock on September 15, 2015. This values Adept at approximately $200 million. It will fund the tender offer through cash on hand.
The tender offer is expected to commence on or about September 23, 2015, and the transaction is expected to close on or about October 23, 2015. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including at least a majority of shares of Adept common stock being tendered in the offer, expiration of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 and receipt of required foreign antitrust approvals. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies.
Commenting on the acquisition, Yutaka Miyanaga, Omron Industrial Automation Business Company President, said, “We are delighted Adept Technology, a world leader in robotics, has agreed to join Omron. This acquisition is part of our strategy to enhance our automation technology and position us for long term growth. Robotics will elevate our offering of advanced automation.”
Rob Cain, President and Chief Executive Officer of Adept, added, “We are excited about the opportunity to join Omron, a global leader in automation. Together, our products will offer new innovative solutions to customers all around the globe.”
Following the transaction, Rob Cain will continue to lead Adept and will report to Nigel Blakeway, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Omron Management Center of America, Inc., Omron’s wholly owned United States subsidiary.
Emerson acquisition
Emerson announced it has acquired Spectrex, Inc., a leading manufacturer of flame and open path gas detectors. With this addition, Emerson Process Management will have the most comprehensive line of flame, gas, and ultrasonic leak detector solutions used for safety monitoring in the industry.
Spectrex will join the Rosemount portfolio of measurement and analytical technologies. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
For nearly 34 years, Spectrex has been the leader in flame and open path gas detection. It developed the world’s first ultraviolet-infrared (UV/IR) and triple infrared (IR3) flame detectors and was first to introduce xenon flash lamps in open path detector design, increasing detectors’ resilience to atmospheric conditions while reducing power consumption. These innovative advancements in safety monitoring provide a powerful solution for customers in the oil and gas, petrochemical, chemical and power industries.
“We are very excited about adding the Spectrex product line to our flame and gas detection portfolio,” said Tom Moser, group vice president of Emerson Process Management’s measurement and analytical technologies. “Emerson is committed to helping our customers protect their employees, facilities, and the environment, and we are now better positioned to serve that need.”
Spectrex and its staff are located in Cedar Grove, N.J., with sales and technical support offices in Houston, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 15, 2015 | Automation, Technology
People keep grabbing headlines, and probably clicks, with scare stories projecting the end of life as we know it because the robots (and automation) are coming to take away all the jobs.
I have written on this topic a few times:
This is an important topic–but not for idle speculation.
I believe people were made to work. It is in our nature. I understand that people exist who retired early, play a little golf, sit around, maybe attend a committee meeting a month. Given reasonably good health, sitting around is something I cannot fathom.
And you need money to live. We may be living in the first society where people have been guaranteed an income through pensions (distinct from savings) and can afford not to work.
It is the urge to be useful, the urge to create, and the urge to feed our families and ourselves that keeps most of us going.
Hence the fear that robots and automation will take all the jobs and most people will be left in poverty.
The people who really do need to pay attention to these trends are those creative types at the forefront of technology. They are creating robots that help people. This product development effort recognizes a key demographic trend–that the population of the US and Western Europe (probably also China) is increasingly aged.
We are facing a shortage of workers in the future, not a surplus. People such as Rodney Brooks and his Baxter robot are forging a new frontier in human assistants. Even in the industrial side ABB and Fanuc (among others I’m sure) are unveiling “cooperative” robots who can work side-by-side with humans no cages required to accomplish work.
Recently Moira Gunn of Tech Nation NPR show and podcast interviewed New York Times journalist John Markoff about his book “Machines of Loving Grace.”
So often New York Times journalists get technology and manufacturing wrong. I have not read the book (yet), but Markoff takes a balanced and reasonable approach in his interview. He’s not trying to make money scaring people. He is actually explaining what is really coming.
We’ll have people. We’ll have robots. We’ll have jobs to do and problems to solve. Life will go on.
by Gary Mintchell | May 21, 2015 | Automation, News
For some reason, I keep getting requests for information and analysis on robotics. The standard models of robots have remained pretty much the same for years. The market has not grown much. The association magazine devoted to robots folded years ago. Yet, there remains some interest in the market.
Given that, ABB had a robot technology day May 20. It was on my calendar to drive up to the Detroit area and attend. A sudden business meeting relating to one of my angel investments interfered. Here is the big news from the event.
ABB announced it is to start producing robots in the United States. Production is to commence immediately. ABB claims it is the only major international robotics player to actually manufacture in the US.
The new plant is ABB’s third robotics production facility, alongside Shanghai, China, and Västerås, Sweden, and will manufacture ABB robots and related equipment for the North American market.
The United States is ABB’s largest market with US$7.5 billion in sales. The company has invested more than US$10 billion in local R&D, capital expenditure and acquisitions since 2010, taking local employment from 11,500 to 26,300. Continued investment in the North American value chain and manufacturing constitutes a significant part of ABB’s global growth plans reflecting the company’s Next Level strategy.
“Today, we are marking and celebrating the next stage of our commitment and growth in North America with the start of local robot manufacturing in Auburn Hills, US,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “ABB is the first global automation company to open a robot manufacturing facility in the United States. Robotics is a fundamental enabler of the next level of North American industrial growth in an increasingly competitive world. With our continued commitment and investment, our local team is well positioned to support our customers with robotics solutions made in the United States. Our leading technology of web-enabled, collaborative and safe robots will contribute to job security and quality of work.”
“The new North American manufacturing presence elevates our offering and service to robotics customers in the United States, Mexico and Canada, allowing us to achieve best-in-class delivery schedules and technical support in North America,” said Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director of ABB Robotics. “The expansion is consistent with our global strategy, which is to establish a local presence in key robotics growth markets to provide our leading technology to our customers.”
The portfolio of products manufactured at the new facility will expand in phases, with the goal that most ABB robots and robot controllers delivered in the United States, Canada and Mexico will be manufactured in Auburn Hills. Localized manufacturing streamlines the delivery process and results in significantly reduced robot lead times for customers.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 25, 2015 | Automation, Technology
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, Jobs and the Clever Robot, dredges up once again the debate “will automation take away all jobs”.
In typical modern journalism style, the article offers no conclusion. It’s “he said, she said” reporting. Let’s just go out and get a few quotes on each side and fill some space. “People are always interested in whether their jobs will go away,” I’m sure some editor told a reporter.
I, for one, wish we already had driverless cars. My trips to Chicago over the past 16 years would have been so much better if I could have read or worked rather than driving. No train or bus was a feasible alternative. I don’t really want to see truck drivers lose their jobs, but every time I’m on suspect roads (slush, ice, snow, fog) and have a semi rig pass me at a high rate of speed I’d love to see automated drivers.
The problem is, we cannot foresee the types of jobs and the changes in work coming in the future. Maybe we need some science fiction writers to tackle the subject and dream up alternative scenarios. What is manufacturing going to look like in 20 years? Can we automate any more of a refinery than we do now? Should we? That would give us more to think on.
Critical reading
Speaking of “he said, she said” journalism, take this article in The New York Times from this morning, Should Athletes Eat Fat or Carbs?
The writer says that most athletes believe in building up with carbs for a workout, but maybe fats would be just as good or better. Once again the methodology was to go out and interview a bunch of people, string together truncated quotes, reach the desired word limit, hit “send” on the keyboard.
There is too much of this writing. In B2B as well as mainstream media. Let’s take a stand, or at least give a reasoned analysis.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 23, 2015 | Automation, News, Security, Technology
I interrupt this blog to say good-bye and best wishes to industrial control systems security pioneers Eric and Joann Byres. They have been through a couple of iterations of entrepreneurship and had recently sold Tofino to Belden. They are leaving that company, taking some time off, and then looking for their next adventure. I appreciate the intense security conversations over the past 10-12 years. Check out the final blog post.
And, now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Industrial Robotics Once Again a Place for Innovation
Some industrial robots are hulking, highly specialized pieces of machinery that are cordoned off by cages from human factory workers.
But manufacturers have also begun experimenting with a new generation of “cobots” designed to work side-by-side with humans, and University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are playing an important role in making these human-robot collaborations more natural and efficient.
Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor of computer sciences, is working with counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to determine best practices for effectively integrating human-robot teams within manufacturing environments. Their research is funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its National Robotics Initiative program.
Furniture maker Steelcase, a global company headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is also a partner. “Working with world-class research universities like UW is critical to our strategy to evolve our industrial systems and develop industry-leading capabilities,” says Steelcase’s Edward Vander Bilt. “Our hope with this research is that we will learn how to extend human-robot collaboration more broadly across our operations.”
In recent years, the robotics industry has introduced new platforms that are less expensive and intended to be easier to reprogram and integrate into manufacturing. Steelcase owns four next-generation robots based on a platform called Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics. Each Baxter robot has two arms and a tablet-like panel for “eyes” that provide cues to help human workers anticipate what the robot will do next.
“This new family of robotic technology will change how manufacturing is done,” says Mutlu. “New research can ease the transition of these robots into manufacturing by making human-robot collaboration better and more natural as they work together.”
Mutlu directs UW-Madison’s Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory and serves as the principal investigator on the UW side of the collaboration. He works closely with Julie A. Shah, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.
Mutlu’s team is building on previous work related to topics such as gaze aversion in humanoid robots, robot gestures and the issue of “speech and repair.” For example, if a human misunderstands a robot’s instructions or carries them out incorrectly, how should the robot correct the human?
At MIT, Shah breaks down the components of human-robot teamwork and tries to determine who should perform various tasks. Mutlu’s work complements Shah’s by focusing on how humans and robots actually interact.
“People can sometimes have difficulty figuring out how best to work with or use a robot, especially if its capabilities are very different from people’s,” says Shah. “Automated planning techniques can help bridge the gap in our capabilities and allow us to work more effectively as a team.”
Over the summer, UW-Madison computer sciences graduate student Allison Sauppé traveled to Steelcase headquarters to learn more about its efforts to incorporate Baxter into the production line. She found that perceptions of Baxter varied according to employees’ roles.
While managers tended to see Baxter as part of the overall system of automation, front-line workers had more complex feelings. “Some workers saw Baxter as a social being or almost a co-worker, and they talked about Baxter as if it were another person,” she says. “They unconsciously attributed human-like characteristics.”
