Cleveland, Ohio – Robotics and automation giant ABB is buying Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-Elektronik GmbH (B&R), a provider of programmable logical controllers (PLCs) and automation software.
Both companies are well known to automotive and commercial truck manufacturers, and their combination could disrupt parts of the automation industry. B&R has development deals with multiple robot producers, including more than 10,000 installed units with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ (FCA US LLC’s) Comau robotics company.
ABB officials called B&R the final piece of the puzzle to offer end-to-end factory automation services, saying B&R’s software and PLC business will complement ABB’s robotics, process automation, and digitalization efforts.
“This transaction marks a true milestone for ABB, as B&R will close the historic gap within ABB’s automation offering. This is a perfect fit and will make us the only industrial automation provider offering customers the entire spectrum of technology and software solutions around measurement, control, actuation, robotics, digitalization, and electrification,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “With our unique digital offering and our installed base of more than 70 million connected devices, 70,000 control systems and now more than 3 million automated machines and 27,000 factory installations around the world, we enable our combined global customer base to seize the huge opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
B&R Co-founder Erwin Bernecker said, “Our operations in Eggelsberg, (Austria), will become ABB’s global center for machine and factory automation. The most important thing to me is that the companies and their people fit so well together and that our founding location will play such a key role.”
B&R will become part of ABB’s Industrial Automation division as a global business unit – Machine & Factory Automation – headed by Managing Director Hans Wimmer. Bernecker and B&R Co-founder Josef Rainer will act as advisors during the integration phase to ensure continuity. ABB expects to retain B&R’s employees.
Company representatives did not disclose terms of the deal, other than to say price-to-earnings multiples were in line with similar transactions.
About the author: Robert Schoenberger is the editor of Today’s Motor Vehicles and a contributor to Today’s Medical Developments and Aerospace Manufacturing and Design. He has written about the automotive industry for more than 17 years at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.