Mechanical Technology

Mechanical Technology — April 2016

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Power transmission, bearings, bushes and seals

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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,

SA’s robot specialist

moves towards

The VIPA CPU SLIO iMC7

offers – in combination with

VIPA SPEED7 Studio – modern

Motion Control functions according to PLCopen.

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).

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