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Automation Technologies 2/2016

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Automation Technologies 2/2016

News and Markets North

News and Markets North American machine vision markets growing yet volatile Strong swiss franc leaves its mark on Endress+Hauser’s earnings Despite a difficult business environment, Endress+Hauser, specialists in instrumentation and process automation was able to hold its ground during the 2015 fiscal year. Although net sales increased 6.6 % to 2.1 billion euros, preliminary financial figures show the impact of the strong Swiss franc on earnings. Last year’s decision by the Swiss Central Bank to revoke the cap on the franc was a major blow to the budget right at the beginning of the year, impacting earnings especially hard. The weak euro also had a significant influence on the Group’s consolidated revenues. In local currencies, the Group’s sales grew less than 1 %. The economic transformation in China as well as the drop in the prices of raw materials – especially declining oil & gas prices – weighed heavily on the business. Despite the challenges, there were several positive developments as well. The Endress+Hauser Group continued to show sound profitability and financial stability. The company increased both its equity capital ratio and the headcount. The Group created more than 500 jobs worldwide, ending the year with a total of 12,952 employees. According to new statistics issued by AIA, the North American sales of machine vision components and systems grew to $ 2.3 billion in 2015. The machine vision components category saw growth of 4 % to $ 316 million in 2015. The leading growth categories for machine vision components in 2015 were lighting 16 %, imaging boards 10 %, and software 4 %. The machine vision systems category was flat in 2015 at $ 2.0 billion. Within machine vision systems, sales of application specific machine vision (ASMV) systems increased 1 % to $ 1.7 billion, while smart cameras contracted by 4 % to $ 289 million. Despite the record performance overall, the machine vision market in North America saw a decrease of 15% in sales of machine vision systems in the 4th quarter of 2015. “59 % of industry experts are expecting things to turn upward for machine vision component markets in 2016, 39 % believe they will remain flat, and 3% expect further declines,” said Alex Shikany, AIA’s Director of Market Analysis. “For machine vision systems, 56 % of believe the category will remain flat, 32 % expect an increase, and 12 % expect a decline.” www.visiononline.org NEWS AND MARKETS www.endress.com Plattform Industrie 4.0 and IIC agree on cooperation Representatives of Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet Consortium met in Zurich, Switzerland to explore the potential alignment of their two architecture efforts – respectively, the Reference Architecture Model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0) and the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA). The meeting was a success, with a common recognition of the complementary nature of the two models, an initial draft mapping showing the direct relationships between elements of the models, and a clear roadmap to ensure future interoperability. The combined strengths of both IIC and Plattform Industrie 4.0 will substantially help to pave the way for a mutually beneficial development of a digitized economy for international businesses. Additional possible topics included collaboration in the areas of IIC Testbeds and I4.0 Test Facility Infrastructures, as well as standardization, architectures & business outcomes in the Industrial Internet. www.plattform-i40.de GenApi 3.0 reference implementation released The GenICam standard group has released GenApi 3.0, a new version of the reference implementation to the GenICam standard. GenApi 3.0 enables to load and interpret the camera description file several times faster and has a much smaller memory footprint than the previous version. In addition, more platforms are now supported, in particular regarding the ARM architecture. All these improvements make the standard in particular interesting for the embedded use case while at the same time the new release is still based on the GenApi standard 2.0 and therefore downward compatible. This new GenApi reference implementation is the result of three years’ work of the GenICam standard group where all major industrial camera and software manufacturers jointly cooperate. It will thus be quickly used by all machine vision device and host manufacturers. GenApi 3.0 can be downloaded on the website of the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) which hosts the GenICam standard through the following weblink: www.emva.org/standards-technology/ genicam/genicam-downloads/. www.emva.org AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES 2/2016

Marc von Waldkirch to become the new CEO of Sensirion CEOs Felix Mayer and Moritz Lechner, who have been largely responsible for the continued and successful growth of Sensirion since its foundation, will be stepping down from their operational management duties and, as Co-Chairmen of the Board, will focus instead on strategic product innovations for new markets. Marc von Waldkirch (born 1974) is a long-term employee with extensive expertise will continue to guide the company as the CEO from 1st of July, 2016. With an honor’s degree in physics and doctorate in electrical engineering from ETH Zurich, Marc von Waldkirch joined Sensirion in 2005 as a Project Manager and was later Head of Liquid Sensor Development. As Vice-President of Development and a member of the Executive Board since 2011, He has made a significant contribution to Sensirion’s high quality standards and the development of new products during this time. This new operational and strategic management structure will further strengthen Sensirion’s position as the provider of intelligent sensor solutions. www.sensirion.com Harting Technology Group focusing on USA For Harting Technology Group, as suppliers of solutions for machine and plant construction and Integrated Industry specialist, USA is very clearly a future market. The strong and intensive re-industrialisation of the US economy driven mainly by IT and software holds great potential for Harting. To further strengthen their competitive ability, US companies are focusing on increasing their productivity with plug-and-play industrial technology while also achieving cost savings. In addition, these products also significantly reduce the need for additional components, for example by making it possible to combine power, signal and data connections in a single connector, which considerably simplifies and streamlines assembly. With the commencement of manufacturing operations in Mexicom Harting is focusing on target markets in North and Central America: automation; energy; transportation; radio, stage and event technology; machine construction; medical technology; and infrastructure. www.harting.com Your Global Automation Partner Brain Gain! HMI Panel with CODESYS PLC Modern compact devices for easy programming of control and visualization functions with CODESYS 3 Can be flexibly used as a PROFINET master, EtherNet/IP scanner, Modbus TCP/RTU master or Modbus TCP/RTU slave Brilliant 7, 10, or 13-inch TFT displays Hannover Messe We‘ll be there! Hall 9, Stand H55 www.turck.com/tx500

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