Mechatronic Solutions for OEM's and Training for Users

This isn't a tweet, but I am on the train returning from a visit to Festo, the sponsor of OnTheEdgeBlog. I must admit that I didn't know to much about Festo beyond their pneumatic components, and readers may be in a similar situation, so without getting too commercial, allow me to share a few observations. If you want to learn more, check out one of the links in the left-hand column.

Festo is a third-generation, 85 year old, privately held, German company with 300,000 customers in 176 countries. Some 13,000 employees turn out several hundred thousand variants of 25,000 catalog products to generate revenues of $2 billion, of which 7.5% is reinvested in R&D and 1.5% is reinvested in training. Festo doesn't just offer training as an adjunct to selling product, but considers skill development solutions as one of their portfolio products along with pneumatic, servo-pneumatic and electronic automation technology.

Festo's commitment to training is impressive. In addition to a huge investment in employee training, Festo sponsors mechatronic and robotics competitions within the WorldSkills program and supports First Robotics, both of which are aimed at making technical education exciting for youth. More companies need to make similar commitments to our future. On the revenue side, Festo's didactic division offers world-class curriculum and training equipment for high schools, colleges and industry.

As a private company, Festo has the flexibility and freedom to do things in their own or in their customers' way. The corporate mission -sustainable management of resources and long-term value enhancement for our customers, our company, our employees and our partners - is a bit unusual in today's cost-cutting world of publicly held companies.

Festo is on a journey from a pneumatics and an electro-pneumatics company with a large share of business in the automotive sector to a full-fledged mechatronics company with the latest servo and robotic solutions for the packaging industry. Like other German technology companies, it will be important for them to help end users feel more comfortable with the technology that advanced OEM's will seek to employ and to speak the language that the industry is accustomed to. End users, on the other hand, are moving toward more standards-based solutions such as IEC-61131 which Festo controllers support.

I am glad to have Festo as a sponsor and hope to see more of them as I travel in the worlds of packaging automation and mechatronics education.

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