Product category:
Plantwide control
News Release from: Nematron Europe
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 28 May 2004
New ownership heralds new focus
The conclusion of Nematron Corp's return to private ownership heralds an exciting new future.
The conclusion of Nematron Corp's return to private ownership heralds an exciting new future with an announcement to breathe new life into the company with a restructured organisation and newly defined product strategy David Hicks, Managing Director of Nematron's successful international business group for the past seven years has been appointed Chief Executive Officer with a mandate to overhaul worldwide operations
The steady progress made in international markets in recent years, particularly Asia-Pacific, places demands for a more globally oriented operational structure in order to meet the more varied business profile experienced by the Ann Arbor based industrial automation supplier; now in its 22nd year.
David Hicks says: "Whilst I envisage the US domestic market will remain our number one market in terms of revenue for many years to come we must also prepare the organisation to rise to the challenge of exciting growth potential for our products in the international markets".
With this goal in mind the restructure includes a significant expansion at Nematron's International Headquarters in Europe.
Restructuring naturally involves an ambitious expansion plan in Europe, however this expansion does not detract from the company's domestic US market commitment.
Nematron will continue to build on the very significant entity in the US in order to service and develop its home market.
The announcement also signals a complete review of Nematron's product strategy following encouraging performance with its recent entry into the PAC (programmable automation controller) market.
With markets showing renewed interest in PC-based control solutions Nematron has introduced the Pointe controller range.
The PTC-5800, a communications and control intensive PAC system employing Industrial Ethernet I/O is the first in a line of products to be codeveloped by engineers at Ann Arbor, Michigan, Foxboro, Massachusetts, and Nematron's Optimation subsidiary in Huntsville.
Although Nematron stays committed to being a full line supplier and will continue to develop its world class industrial PC products the recent PAC developments at Nematron are setting the pace for a new and exciting automation control centric product strategy.
Significant new software developments to support the PTC 5800 family are currently well advanced by way of a completely new integrated development framework (IDF).
The IDF development is part of a series of ongoing activities adding a rich depth to the Nematron Open Automation Suite.
The new IDF features an application-centric resource view, setting the stage for multinode applications.
This further develops some of the concepts first advanced with the Pointe Controller Framework and represents a distinct departure from the single-node focus of OpenControl.
Other enhanced features include a consistent look-and-feel across all Tag database editors and enhanced validity checking and error reporting.
Significant new features such as Deployable System Architecture and online functions for network configuration offer customers tangible benefits during application development and maintenance.
Nematron's change in focus reaffirms its commitment to once again leverage its core competences in the pursuit of proprietary products of excellence.
As a leading developer of industrial automation solutions for the plant floor, Nematron has been at the forefront of innovation, introducing the industry's first operator panels, industrial PCs and PC-based control software with flow-chart programming.
Today Nematron delivers a wide range of hardware and software solutions into virtually every segment of the industrial automation market.
Current product offerings include industrial PCs, HMIs, operator panels, Ethernet I/O, embedded controllers, HMI/Scada and PC-based control software.
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