Automation arrived in the industrial age as a boon to manufacturing industries as they could mass-produce their products by incurring lower costs and ensuring high-quality. Today, industrial automation is not just limited to manufacturing operations, and has expanded its application area across the logistics and supply chain function of an organization. Supply chain professionals are more reliant on enterprise process robots, which can automate an entire business process such as supply chain. For instance, robotics solutions can detect that a warehouse is full due to the lack of inventory movement and automatically alerts procurement teams to adjust to a new storage location. The notion that robots are stationery, blind, and can only perform repetitive tasks are rapidly disappearing due to new-age intelligent robots which are lighter, flexible, and can learn on their own to perform new tasks. So who are the companies behind such game-changing innovations that are contributing to the modern-day industrial revolution?
Top Industrial Automation Companies
Siemens
Siemens AG is a German conglomerate company which is one of the largest engineering companies in Europe. The company has amassed over 140 years of experience in engineering, making them known for their engineering excellence, innovation, and reliability. Industry, Energy, Healthcare, and Infrastructure & Cities are the primary divisions of the company. The company caters to a wide variety of industries including aerospace, automotive, chemicals, data centers, food & beverage, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, logistics, and utilities. In the fiscal year of 2016, employees from Siemens reported 7,513 inventions within the company and submitted over 3,500 initial patent applications. Some of the well-known inventions from Siemens include gas turbine, wind turbine, steam turbine, and x-ray tube.
ABB Group
ABB Group (ASEA Brown Boveri) is a Swedish-swiss multinational corporation which operates mainly in heavy electrical equipment, robotics, power, and automation technology areas. It is also one of the leading technology and automation company providing digitally connected and enabled industrial equipment and systems. The product range of ABB includes low voltage products and systems, control room solutions, drives, high voltage products, measurement and analytics, mechanical power transmission products, and medium voltage products.
Emerson Process Management
Emerson Electric is an American multinational corporation focusing on electrical equipment. Their products are used by chemical, food & beverage, marine, life sciences, mining, oil and gas, and power industry. They also manufacture automation solutions which can be broadly categorized into:
- Measurement and analytical tools
- Valves, regulators, and final control elements
- Systems, controllers, and software
- Other services.
Rockwell Automation
Rockwell Automation Inc. is among the Fortune 500 companies that provides industrial automation solutions and information products. The company employs more than 22,000 people and depicts expertise in connected enterprise, consulting services, industrial maintenance and support services, industrial security, industrial networks, process solutions, and safety solutions. Their core product base consists of advanced process control, design, and operations software, distributed control systems, drives, drive systems, human machine interface, industrial sensors, programmable controllers (PLC), and motion control.
Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation and is a global specialist in energy management and industrial automation. The company employs over 160,000 employees and provides solutions to manage energy and process in ways that are reliable, safe, efficient, and sustainable. They provide solutions for industrial as well as home users including building automation and control, low voltage products and systems, solar and energy storage, distribution and grid automation, and critical power, cooling, and racks.
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