Movers & Shakers: GE, Trelleborg, Fluke, others make acquisitions

Sept. 28, 2016

Acquisitions, Expansions & Partnerships Asahi/America and Bänninger partner in North America Thermoplastic valve and pipe manufacturer Asahi/America Inc. will partner with German manufacturer, Bänninger. Through …

Acquisitions, Expansions & Partnerships

Asahi/America and Bänninger partner in North America

Thermoplastic valve and pipe manufacturer Asahi/America Inc. will partner with German manufacturer, Bänninger. Through the partnership, Asahi/America will have exclusive distribution rights in North America to Bänninger’s PP-RCT piping systems for the commercial plumbing market.

Workforce training organization launching in New York & New Jersey

GBMP will open its first branch office outside of New England in New York and Northeast New Jersey. GBMP’s reputation for helping clients is well known in New England and the expansion is in response to an increase in client demand in the new areas. GBMP’s training model for onsite customized workforce training and development includes tacit, hands-on, experiential learning.

Trelleborg acquires Anderson Seal

Trelleborg, a world leader in engineered polymer solutions, acquired Anderson Seal LLC, a privately owned U.S.-based seal distributor and value-added service partner. Supporting the growth strategy of Trelleborg Sealing Solutions, the acquisition also further expands the delivery and service of seals, gaskets and custom-molded products for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in industries such as automotive, hydraulic and medical/life sciences.

Fluenta to supply flare gas meters

Fluenta, a global leader in ultrasonic measurement and management technology, will work with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to supply flare gas meters. Fluenta will supply KOC with meters to be used at multipoint smokeless high-pressure flare sites at 14 South and East Kuwait gathering centers, supporting Fluenta’s continued expansion into the Middle East energy market.

Alicat Scientific opens European office

Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, mass flow device manufacturer Alicat Scientific opened a new regional office in Cambridge, United Kingdom, to give customers across Europe local sales and service for Alicat’s line of pressure controllers, mass flow controllers, meters and accessories. The office will be led by European Territory Manager, Andy Mangell, who joined the company earlier this year. Alicat also has regional service and support centers in India and China.

GE Digital acquires Meridium Inc.

GE Digital acquired Meridium Inc., a global leader in asset performance management (APM) software and services for asset-intensive industries. The acquisition will help GE Digital accelerate its comprehensive APM offering and provide a solution to customers that unifies real-time analytics with reliability-centered maintenance best practices to deliver a complete APM solution. Meridium customers will gain access to GE’s domain expertise in real-time data management and advanced industrial analytics.

Soundcore Capital acquires PumpMan

PumpMan, a leading provider of pump system maintenance, repair and new system installation, has been acquired by the private equity firm Soundcore Capital Partners LLC. As part of the transaction, Don Devine has been named CEO of PumpMan. Devine has more than 25 years of experience at multi-million dollar global corporations including American Standard, as well as expertise integrating strategic acquisitions.

Waterleau Group commissions biogas plant

Waterleau Group, a leading global provider of energy recovery and water, air and waste treatment, has commissioned a biogas power plant in Bergheim-Paffendorf, Germany. The commission is part of an effort to increase energy efficiency for the region and test new technologies. The state-of-the-art facility has a thermal capacity of 7.4 megawatts and is designed to feed up to 700 cubic meters of biogas into the Thyssengas gas grid. The plant was designed and built by Waterleau Group in partnership with the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s primary energy-producing region; and RWE International SE, a leading European energy company.

Reputation for reliability earns Landia more work in China

Landia supplied a total of 22 pumps and mixers for an expanding wastewater treatment plant in central China. The new Matougang sludge handling facility is located in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan Province. The pump and mixer contract was awarded to Landia by the tank manufacturer, Lipp. Almost 10 years ago, Lipp first specified 13 Landia pumps for its inaugural installation in China. The pumps have continued to work efficiently and reliably. At the new facility, dewatered sludge will be digested in order to reduce the amount of sludge, and biogas will produce heat and green electricity.

PacifiCAD sells to d3 Technologies

PacifiCAD Inc., a top Autodesk solutions and services provider, is selling their Autodesk manufacturing and plant business assets to d3 Technologies, the leader in Autodesk manufacturing solutions. PacifiCAD will continue to own and operate their Autodesk AEC business while continuing to grow their software and service offerings. D3 will now serve the Central U.S., Gulf Coast, Mountain and Pacific Northwest regions.

Fluke acquires eMaint Enterprises

A leader in electronic test tools and software, Fluke Corporation, acquired eMaint Enterprises LLC, a leader in computerized maintenance management software. eMaint’s software platform is used by more than 50,000 maintenance professionals in 55 countries to provide asset management solutions in markets, such as food processing, healthcare, facilities, fleet, services, manufacturing and others.

FCX Performance acquires RL Stone

FCX Performance, a leading specialty flow control distributor, acquired RL Stone Inc. RL Stone is a regional distributor of valves and instrumentation to the process market based in New York. The acquisition will increases the FCX footprint to 36 offices throughout the nation and significantly increase FCX’s presence and capabilities in the Northeast.

Five new partners join Collaborative Automation Partner Program

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, added five new companies to its Collaborative Automation Partner Program (CAPP). These technology partners add innovative technologies for customers across a variety of industries through the Schneider Electric PlantStruxure and MachineStruxure platforms. CAPP incorporates more than 200 partner products, which integrate with Schneider Electric industrial automation solutions. New partners include: Extreme Networks, Intel Security, j5 International, Mettler Toledo and WIN-911.

New partnership in Latin America

Indisa S.A., a leading engineering firm in Colombia and Mexico, joined the Hatch Group of Companies. Known as Hatch-Indisa, the partnership will further enhance Hatch’s growing presence in Latin America and open up new opportunities to deliver fully integrated solutions to industrial clients in Colombia and Mexico. Hatch-Indisa will combine Hatch’s global, multi-sector experience and technical expertise with Indisa’s local market knowledge and professional capabilities.

Hexagon AB acquires Apodius GmbH

Hexagon AB acquired Apodius GmbH, a start-up company specializing in measurement solutions for fiber composite components. Based in Germany, Apodius serves OEMs and suppliers in the automotive, aerospace, electronics and appliances industries with development, production and integration of measurement solutions for carbon fiber. The acquisition adds core capabilities to support the implementation of measurement solutions in multi-layered textile reinforced structures for extremely light, rigid and robust fiber composite components.

Schaeffler expands its production capacities in China

Schaeffler invested in a new manufacturing location in Xiangtan, in the Chinese province of Hunan. The agreement includes investment in a new production campus in Xiangtan in order to expand the company’s production capacity in the Greater China region and improve delivery capability for customers in domestic and international markets. The expansion of the new location is planned in stages and will begin with the construction of a manufacturing plant that will produce automobile parts and precision bearings, with initial operation planned for the end of 2018. An additional phase will include a second plant constructed with a logistics center and a training facility.

The SGT5-4000F gas turbine from Siemens during shipment for the power plant Bandar Abbas in Iran. Image courtesy of Siemens

Siemens to provide services in Mexico, Russia & Turkey

Siemens will provide long-term service and maintenance at four power plants in Mexico. The service agreement covers eight gas turbines and related auxiliaries to be delivered to the Valle de México (two SGT6-8000H units), Empalme I (two SGT6-8000H units), Empalme II (two SGT6-8000H units) and Tula (two SGT6-5000F units) combined cycle power plants in Mexico for a period of 16 years. These four power plants will have a combined electrical capacity of 2,727 megawatts, which will be enough to supply one million households in Mexico with electricity.

Siemens will also supply company steam turbines to Russia and Turkey for a model SST-111 compact steam turbine. One turbine was ordered for a production facility in Volgograd and will be delivered at the end of April 2017. The other turbine will be supplied to the Mimsan boiler manufacturer in Turkey. This turbine is to be used in a biomass plant in the Turkish city of Mecitözü. Both turbines will be manufactured at the Frankenthal site in Germany.

Siemens and MAPNA partnership underway

In March 2016, Siemens concluded an agreement with MAPNA, Iran’s largest power plant EPC contractor, to collaborate on the transfer of know-how for the F-class gas turbine technology in order to modernize the Iranian power supply system. Six months later, Siemens has shipped the first F-class gas turbine for the project Bandar Abbas to Iran. The plant is being built in the port city of the same name in the southern province of Hormozgān, near the coast of the Persian Gulf.

Viega begins production at new US facility

Viega’s new manufacturing facility in McPherson, Kansas, has the capacity to produce millions of Viega MegaPress and MegaPressG carbon steel press fittings. The 80,000-square-foot manufacturing addition to Viega’s McPherson campus will be capable of manufacturing three million MegaPress fittings per year at full capacity.

Appointments

Director of additive manufacturing programs for ASTM

ASTM International hired a technical consultant in additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to support standards development and related needs in the field. Mohsen Seifi, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research associate at Case Western Reserve University, will fill the role of director of additive manufacturing programs. The new appointment meets a need for in-house expertise at ASTM International at a time when technologies in the field are rapidly evolving.

Image courtesy of WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff

New WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff president of program management

Richard Driggs was named president of program management at WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global engineering and professional services organization. Driggs will be responsible for building a program management organization across all of the company’s markets in the U.S. and Latin America, including buildings, industrial & energy, environment and transportation. Driggs has more than two decades of experience in the architecture, engineering, construction and real estate.

Sebring named president of MCAA

The Board of Directors of the Measurement, Control & Automation Association (MCAA) has appointed Teresa Sebring as President of the Association. Sebring joined MCAA in 1997 as Administrative Assistant to the President. Since 2012, she has served as Vice-President, being responsible for the operations of MCAA, including communications, data programs and staff oversight, marketing, and meeting/event planning. She has a B.A. in Business Management from Christopher Newport University.

CEO transition plan for NI

National Instruments (NI), the provider of platform-based systems for engineers and scientists, has announced that its Board of Directors has elected Alex Davern to serve as their CEO and President, effective January 1, 2017. Davern will succeed Dr. James Truchard, who has served as CEO since the company’s founding in 1976. Truchard will remain as Chairman of the Board. This transition is being undertaken as part of the board’s succession planning process.

Image courtesy of ISA

ISA84 committee co-chairman

Paul Gruhn was appointed as co-chair to the Instrumentation, Safety and Automation Society (ISA) ISA84 Committee. The ISA84 Committee develops standards and technical reports for use in applying Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Systems in process safety applications. Gruhn will help build consensus among participants on ISA84 standards, ensure that the committee operates properly, and set goals and deadlines for the committee. Gruhn is a Global Functional Safety Consultant with aeSolutions in Houston, Texas.

Red Lion names vice president of strategic marketing

Red Lion Controls, experts in communication, monitoring and control for industrial automation and networking, was appointed Ron Salerno as vice president of strategic marketing. Salerno was previously the Director of Marketing and Business Development in the Process Instrumentation division at Siemens. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University and an MBA from LaSalle University.

Image courtesy of Tsurumi Pump

Tsurumi Pump announces new vice president of sales

Tsurumi Pump has appointed Chuck Rickman as the company’s new vice president of sales as part of their growth strategy. Rickman will assume the responsibilities of recently retired Bill Davidson and work directly with Tsurumi’s regional sales managers to establish new distribution channels, forecast sales, attend trade shows and assist with pricing. Rickman has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Eastern Illinois University.

LogiLube hires first company president

LogiLube LLC, a Wyoming-based technology development company, has named Don Ray as president of their North American Oil and Gas Division. This new position aligns with the company’s strategy to focus on serving North America’s midstream oil and gas companies. Ray has more than 35 years of sales, sales management and executive level leadership in start-up and publicly traded companies. Ray joins LogiLube after serving as CEO/president and board member of KW International, a privately held oil and gas production equipment sales and service company.

Awards, Milestones & Celebrations

Three Dow Technologies finalists in 2016 IChemE Global Awards

The Dow Chemical Company is a finalist in the 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Global Awards, including the Innovative Product Award, the Energy Award and the Water Award. The IChemE Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and achievement in the chemical process and biochemical industries and received nearly 500 submissions this year, a record number since the award’s inception in 1994. The winners will be announced on November 3, 2016, during a ceremony at The Palace Hotel in Manchester, UK.

Assured Automation wins best practices award

The Combined Cycle Journal recognized the Best of the Best 2016 Best Practices Award, and this year’s award includes a solution recommended by PTLF Process LLC for a less expensive and simpler installation of Assured Automation’s NV Series direct-drive gear-style design actuator. The NV Series replaced obsolete belt-driven fuel-gas and fuel-oil ball-valve actuators at 10 percent of the cost of the OEM for the Siemens V84.2 generator.

Fibergrate Composite Structures Inc. celebrates 50th anniversary

Fibergrate Composite Structures Inc., the inventor of fiberglass reinforced plastic molded grating, is celebrated its 50th anniversary in September. The company was founded by William C. Coonrod after he created the first fiberglass molded grating panel in his Dallas, Texas, garage. Fibergrate hosted events for employees at its Dallas headquarters, as well as its two manufacturing facilities in Stephenville, Texas, and Querétaro, Mexico.

PBN’s 2016 Innovation in Manufacturing award

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence North America was awarded the 2016 Innovation in Manufacturing award by Providence Business News. They were also recognized as one of the region’s fastest-growing, most innovative companies. Winners were selected for having a new product or process that has made a significant impact on the marketplace and/or the enterprise. Hexagon entered their GLOBAL Advantage High Throughput & Accuracy platform that was developed to measure complex aerospace and land-based compressor blades.

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