Mechanical Technology April 2016

⎪ Power transmission, bearings, bushes and seals ⎪

SA’s robot specialist moves towards

Yaskawa Southern Africa, through the opening of a new Drives Motion Control (DMC) division at its Longmeadow facility in Gauteng, South Africa, is taking on local responsibility for the full Yaskawa product range. MechTech talks to managing director, Terry Rosenberg (right).

G lobally, Yaskawa is a world leading supplier of industrial robots (Motoman); machine controllers; servo drives and servomotors; and inverter solutions, en- abling the company to offer comprehen- sive automation solutions for a diverse set of markets. Yaskawa’s robotics division has been active in South Africa through Johannesburg-based Robotic Systems SA since 1991, which is the market leader in robotic automation in South Africa with an installed base over 1 000 industrial robots. During the first quarter of 2012, a majority stake in Robotic Systems was acquired by Yaskawa Europe and the local entity was renamed Yaskawa Southern Africa. Terry Rosenberg, who was retained as MD of Yaskawa Southern Africa along with his successful local team noted at that time: “After many years of working with the Yaskawa organisation, we are excited to be a fully-fledged partner in this foremost international group of companies.” In December of that same year, Yaskawa Europe announced the signing of an agreement to acquire a majority share in VIPA, (visualisation and process automation) a specialist Germany-based manufacturer and supplier for I/O mod- ules, PLCs and HMIs. With the global integration of VIPA,

Yaskawa began to expand its product portfolio with a view to becoming a total solutions provider with a portfolio com- bination comprising VIPA’s product port- folio with Yaskawa’s inverter drives, ac servo solutions and robot product lines. “Beside the synergies resulting from the combined and integrated product portfolio, there are much more benefits for existing and new Yaskawa custom- ers”, states Manfred Stern, president of Yaskawa Europe. ‘Together with the engi- neering resources of the Drives & Motion Division and the Robotics Division, Yaskawa Europe now has a strong de- velopment team here in Europe, close to our customers and the EMEA markets.” In March this year, Yaskawa Southern Africa announced the establishment of a new local business unit, DMC (drives, motion, control) bringing, at the behest of its European parent, the full global Yaskawa offering into the Southern African region. “As the local subsidiary of Yaskawa in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, we are now able to sup- port and supply the full suite of Yaskawa automation solutions to the region. “Every manufacturing machine, conveyor belt, lifting system, bottle filler or packaging system has controllers, drives and motors that have to be co- ordinated to optimise the performance of the process,” says Rosenberg. “This is an enormous market for us and a significant growth opportunity.” The VIPA controller range VIPA was founded in 1985 as an automation systems house, initially developing PC-based machine oper- ating panels and control and commu- nication modules. The development of the SPEED7 high-speed PLC, which is among the most powerful PLC systems on the global market, was a technological milestone for the company, significantly extending its reach into the automation industry. As well as this PLC technology, VIPA adds a complete range of PLCs, from small to high performance, along with

remote I/O technology, touch panels and SCADA systems to the local Yaskawa offering. Key global references include carmak- ers Daimler and Volkswagen. For Daimler, Yaskawa VIPA Speed7 CPUs, SLIO I/O systems and bus technology was used to reliably control and synchronise the complex system of fans, filters and air conditioning equipment required in the paint plant at the new Mercedes Benz compact vehicles plant in Hungary. And in VW’s Kassel factory in Germany, VIPA, together with ThyssenKrupp, installed the assembly line for double clutch transmissions. A powerful net- work of 37 Speed7 CPUs was created to synchronise 14 robot stations, check the quality in real-time and transmit all the data to the digital control system. This system enables one transmission to leave the assembly line every two minutes. Inverter drives and motors Since it was founded about 100 years ago Yaskawa has been developing dedicated mechatronic solutions for industries such as packaging and food processing; lifting and materials handling; cranes, hoists lifts and escalators; textile machines and plants; HVAC systems, fans and pumps; and machines, tools and systems. In 2007 the company announced the production of its 10 millionth inverter from its Yukuhashi plant in Japan, a sta- tistic that makes Yaskawa one of the larg- est inverter manufacturer in the world. For general purpose use, Yaskawa offers its J1000 series for compact au- tomation requirements; the V1000-range where open-loop vector functionality and the use of synchronous/permanent magnet (PM) motors without feedback is preferred; and the A1000 series, which is

The VIPA CPU SLIO iMC7 offers – in combination with VIPA SPEED7 Studio – modern Motion Control functions according to PLCopen.

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Mechanical Technology — April 2016