"Lenze is doing well, we want to continue to grow in the future - worldwide. To this end, we will focus even more strongly on our expertise as a system provider for the automation of machines" - these were the words used by CEO Christian Wendler to introduce the annual press conference on 12 October, at the same time announcing a comprehensive investment program for the coming years.

Christian Wendler, CEO of Lenze: "For us, too, the trend is increasingly moving away from hardware and towards software and digitalization."

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According to Wendler, Group sales in the 2016/2017 financial year (reporting date: April 30) rose by 4.9% to a new record of EUR 678.3 million. The company achieved the largest absolute increase in turnover in Europe, with growth of 3.6% to EUR 514 million. However, the Group also achieved significant growth in other regions: in Asia by 12.3% to 83.7 million euros and in America by 6.4% to 77.9 million euros. At EUR 58.5 million, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were 20.7% higher than in the previous year; after taxes, the balance sheet shows EUR 38.1 million (previous year: EUR 31.5 million).

According to Wendler, the positive figures also create room for investment in the future. Specifically, the company is planning to invest significantly more than EUR 100 million above the usual level of investment in the coming years to implement its 2020+ strategy. A significant proportion of this is to flow into the core project 'Mechatronic Competence Campus'. This investment, the largest in the company's history to date, will combine three production facilities into one state-of-the-art plant with state-of-the-art logistics. Further acquisitions - a majority stake in the Sindelfingen-based company Logicline was already acquired in the spring - are probably only a matter of time, as it will be difficult to achieve the EUR 1 billion turnover mark that Wendler is aiming for in a few years' time with organic growth on the current scale alone.

Coming from the field of drive technology, Lenze intends to focus more strongly on the topics of digitalization, software and the networking of machines in the future and considers itself well positioned for this. The corresponding portfolio is based on three pillars: mechatronic products and packages on the one hand, and hardware and software-based automation systems - the company's core business - on the other. The third pillar is digital services. As far as the latter is concerned, Wendler is convinced that Lenze's 15-year-old subsidiary Encoway - a software provider for configuration, pricing and quotation (CPQ) - already has an experience advantage over its market competitors. In addition to this, the aforementioned company Logicline will complement the Lenze portfolio in the future in the role of a service provider with the task of integrating enterprise applications, mobile apps and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions into (cloud) environments specified by machine and plant manufacturers or operators.

New servo inverter at SPS IPC Drives

Regardless of the future strategy geared towards Industry 4.0, Lenze's roots lie in the drive technology business. According to its Chief Innovation Officer, Frank Maier, the Hamelin-based company also wants to open a new chapter in automation in this area at the upcoming SPS IPC Drives 2017: the new i950 servo inverter, which will be presented to the general public for the first time in Nuremberg, is intended to remove the previous boundaries between controller-based and drive-based automation.

By way of explanation: Lenze has always pursued two different automation concepts. On the one hand, drive-based automation with decentralized intelligence distributed to the drive technology - as implemented in the previous 9400 servo inverter, for example. On the other hand, controller-based automation, which is based on centralized intelligence in the PLC. The drawback to date: seamless consistency in terms of engineering and programming was not guaranteed. Although both approaches were based on IEC 61131-3, the engineering of the controllers was carried out using PLC Designer, PLC programming using Codesys 3.x and motion control using SoftMotion, while the tools on the drive side were called L-Force-Engineer, Codesys 2.x and 9400 Motion. There was also incompatibility at the drive system level - Windows CE on one side, MicroOS on the other.

Frank Maier: "With the combination of the i950 (left in the picture), the permanently excited m850 synchronous motor, which we are also presenting at SPS IPC Drives, and our g700 gearbox, we have an extremely powerful servo axis in our portfolio."

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According to Frank Maier, with the new i950 servo inverter, the controller-based automation platform has now been successfully integrated 1:1 into the controller. This means that both solutions use the PLC Designer, are programmable via Codesys 3.x and allow the user to use the standardized technology modules of the Application Software Toolbox 'Fast', adapt them individually if required or use their own software programmed in IEC-61131-3. In short: "We have now kept the promise of consistency that we made ten years ago," says Maier. The only difference is the operating system, as the i950 is based on Linux RT. The next step has already been mapped out, namely the conversion of the controller world to Linux RT.

With the introduction of the i950, it will ultimately be irrelevant from a software engineering perspective whether a servo inverter is integrated into the machine topology as a simple actuator, as a parameterizable axis or as a freely programmable axis. In other words, in future it will no longer matter to the user whether they are aiming for a centralized or decentralized automation topology or an intelligent mix of both.

Back to the digitalization strategy mentioned at the beginning: Frank Maier is convinced that the further development of business models as part of the digital transformation is inextricably linked to cloud computing. Data from machines and systems is collected there, analyzed and, if necessary, linked to other information. "Connectivity to the cloud will become a standard feature at field level in the next few years, just like fieldbus communication," Maier is convinced. The company therefore consistently relies on standardized protocols such as OPC UA or MQTT in its automation portfolio.

What Lenze will definitely not be doing is offering its own cloud solution. Maier comments: "Firstly, there are already too many of them. And secondly, the end user or operator ultimately determines the data and therefore also specifies the cloud environment. The decisive factor is that we can connect to all common solutions." Taking this into account, the i950 can act as a potential gateway to the cloud and also take on the role of an edge controller. At market launch, the new servo already "speaks" MQTT and will soon also support the publish/subscribe mechanism.