AUTOMATA S.p.A.
The Group
Automata is a team of companies in the Cannon Group that specialise in industrial electronics. With a staff of over 2,000 people, Cannon provides engineering solutions for plastics processing (namely polyurethane, thermoplastics, composites and thermoforming), energy and ecology, aluminium pressure die-casting, electronic control systems for industrial processes, and metering systems for fluids.
The Company
Automata consists of two companies: Automata S.p.A., based in the vicinity of Milan and set up in 1980 as the evolution of Cannon automation division, and Automata GmbH, based near Munich, Germany, and established in 1988. Today, the two firms constitute a single company synergically engaged in the development, manufacture and support of systems and equipment for industrial automation. Automata makes 33% of its business by selling automation solutions to companies within the Cannon Group and 67% by providing products and systems to external companies. Automata?s payoff, ?Ideas Industrially Applied?, bears witness to its ability to translate ideas and intuition into successful manufacturing solutions.
Experience and Reliability
The responsibility to provide reliable products to its sister companies is itself a guarantee of Automata?s dependability in designing and developing systems for the manufacturing industry. The broad experience Automata has gained in the Cannon Group in a variety of application fields goes into all its products as part of their tried-and-tested technological heritage.
Organisation
·Research & Development: is engaged in the research, design and development of products, the preparation of technical documents, and the provision of production and technical support.
·Marketing & Sales: defines products, manages the company?s sales strategy and policy and runs the network of agents and dealers;
·Operations: co-ordinates procurement, creation of prototypes, engineering, production and technical support.
The Research Laboratory
Automata?s research laboratory has been certified by the Italian Ministry of University Education, Scientific and Technological Research. This certification, which is granted to several companies and university laboratories, gives access to considerable non-returnable Government funds through fast and lean procedures.
Automata main product lines are:
Industrial PC?s: Automata conceives the industrial PC as a supervision and control machine characterised by extreme modularity, ease of maintenance, and a rational shape. In consideration of the high level of research and engineering behind these models, some of them have been granted international patents.
Operator terminal: characterised by extreme modularity, PC architecture, and a smart design, Automata?s operator terminals offer a high level of protection and high-performing configuration software.
Supervision Software: it is defined HMC, Human Machine Complement, and is the result of the experience gained by Automata?s engineers in managing manufacturing equipment on such principles as rationalisation of software architecture, connectivity to the surrounding environment and use of ad-hoc tools.
Control Systems and Distributed I/O: the high production volumes and the extensive experience gained by Automata in the Cannon Group have made it possible for its concentrated (running on VME) and distributed control systems to offer extreme reliability, significant cost-efficiency, and well-below-average reaction time. The software used in Automata control systems, which runs on IEC-1131, is fully portable on all product lines.
PC Cards: where customised solutions or embedded applications are required whose economic viability is determined by very high production volumes, Automata can supply PC cards from the major brands on the market.
|
|
