Bosch Rexroth invests in the expansion of its factory automation business and agreed to acquire the motion control specialist Elmo Motion Control Ltd, headquartered in Petach-Tikva, Israel. Elmo develops and produces electrical high-end servo drives and motion controls for industrial automation. The company has around 330 associates (pictured, from left, Steffen Haack, CEO of Bosch Rexroth, Haim Monhait, founder and owner of Elmo Motion Control, and Thomas Fechner, head of the Bosch Rexroth automation and electrification solutions business unit).
The high performance, extremely space-saving and precise drives complement the Bosch Rexroth product portfolio around the ctrlX Automation platform. Bosch Rexroth sees a continuously growing demand for smart automation and Industry 4.0 solutions that increase productivity in factories and conserve resources. “Factory automation is a clear focus topic at Bosch Rexroth. We are strengthening our portfolio both organically through the development of innovative products such as ctrlX Automation and through appropriate acquisitions such as Elmo”, says Fechner.
The acquisition will combine the innovative strength and dynamics of Elmo with the factory automation expertise of Bosch Rexroth. Bosch’s intentions are to enhance Elmo’s capabilities of developing and manufacturing the most advanced motion and servo control products. Elmo is planned to remain as an Israel entity, with local management and retaining the current staff.
Bosch Rexroth believes that in the factory of the future only floors, ceilings and walls are fixed. Everything else is flexible, and thus the company continuously presents solutions to the market that fit perfectly into this concept. By adding the smart, very compact and robust drives from Elmo, Bosch Rexroth ideally complements its portfolio. “Elmo’s technology enables us to integrate drives the size of a smartphone into robots or autonomous transport vehicles, for example – says Fechner -. Elmo technologies thus open up new fields of application that pose special technological challenges, such as autonomous transport vehicles, service robotics, or the decentralized arrangement of drives in machines. Here, Elmo products demonstrate their strengths primarily through their motion performance, compactness, energy efficiency, and precision combined with high dynamics”.
Haim Monhait, founder and owner of Elmo Motion Control, says: “I am very pleased that the Elmo team, our technology and our customers now have a clearer and even more promising path to the future. Elmo joins Bosch Rexroth not only because our products complement each other well, but also because the company pursues a customer-oriented approach in factory automation with convincing growth ambitions. Elmo will continue to create innovative, smart and leading motion control solutions to improve machines performance for the benefit of our customers”.
Elmo Motion Control specializes in technologically sophisticated, yet compact servo drives and motion control. These electrical servo drives and motion controllers are built utmost smart and ensure fully certified functional safety. The products fit particular well in the segments semiconductor, electronic manufacturing, electrical industry, robotics, medical, automated guided vehicles (AGV), automatic warehousing, and the packaging and food industry. Elmo was founded in 1988 as a private company based in Petach Tikva, near Tel Aviv, Israel. In addition to the main location, the company maintains an assembly site in Poland.
Bosch Rexroth had already taken over a majority share in Kassow Robots in spring of 2022. The Danish company with around 25 associates produces collaborative robots (cobots) that can be used in industrial manufacturing in many different ways. The cobots offer high payload and range and can work in the tightest of spaces: equipped with seven axes, a cobot from Kassow Robots can reach around corners like an arm and thus offers a flexibility unrivaled on the market.