In the 2016 financial year, Beckhoff Automation generated global sales of EUR 679 million, which corresponds to growth of 9.5% compared to the previous year. "We are very satisfied with this sales result. Even though growth was rather moderate compared to the previous year at 22%, it is a remarkable result in view of the much slower growth in the industry," summarized Managing Director Hans Beckhoff at the recent Hannover Messe. "If you evaluate the development of both years together, the average result is an excellent 15%." The main growth driver in 2016 was Europe, after Asia had dominated in recent years. In particular, growth rates in the Central European countries of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy were above average.

Internationalization is progressing
Beckhoff is continuing to expand its global sales network in order to drive internationalization forward: at the beginning of the year, the long-standing Dutch distributor was taken over so that Dutch customers can now also be supported directly. Beckhoff currently has 35 subsidiaries and is represented by its own sales companies and distributors in 75 countries around the world. "We are convinced that we will be able to further increase our turnover with the nationwide consolidation of our sales organization - in parallel with the conquest of new technology markets," explains Hans Beckhoff.

Entry into process technology

The newly introduced EtherCAT Terminals from the ELX series have intrinsically safe inputs/outputs and therefore allow the direct connection of field devices up to Ex zone 0/20.

© Beckhoff

The entry into the process technology market should provide new impetus: At the Hannover Messe, the company presented a system-integrated solution for explosion protection specifically for this industry - with an Ex component portfolio for barrier-free concepts up to zone 0/20. In addition to the ELX series EtherCAT Terminals with intrinsically safe interfaces, these include the new CPX series Control Panels and Panel PCs, which are also suitable for use in Ex zone 2/22, as well as the TwinCAT control software with numerous specific process technology interfaces.

Explosion protection can be integrated directly into the overall control system for new systems, while the PC-based Beckhoff control system can be easily expanded for existing systems. With the embedding of process technology interfaces such as NAMUR, HART, FDT/DTM, the common standards of the industry are also covered. "The process industry market is generally considered to be larger than the market for discrete machine automation, where Beckhoff is primarily at home. Our new products therefore provide us with excellent additional growth opportunities," says Hans Beckhoff, explaining the reasons for this.

He does not want to lose sight of other future topics either: "Industry 4.0 and IoT also play an exciting role in automation. New active and functional principles can be realized." With the simple cloud connection - directly from the controller - functionality is to be outsourced or additional cloud services integrated into the machine, for example to use advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence or deep learning and to implement predictive maintenance.