In an effort to boost its industrial software product portfolio, industrial automation and engineering conglomerate Siemens AG has announced an agreement to acquire Germany-based innotec GmbH, a provider of digital engineering software and services for the process manufacturing industries, for an undisclosed sum.
According to Siemens, the addition of innotec’s technology to Siemens’ Industry Automation business will allow the company to provide comprehensive coverage to discrete and process manufacturing sectors alike, as this latest purchase complements the 2007 acquisition of UGS, which focused on discrete sectors.
innotec, founded in 1991, makes software that helps process companies design and manage the processes and automation systems in their plants. Siemens said the innotec software would complement Siemens’ existing process engineering products, including its Simatic PCS 7 process control system. innotec’s software portfolio is built around Comos, an integrated platform for plant lifecycle asset information management that is used for process engineering, conceptual design, pipeline and function planning, automation and instrumentation/control planning, measuring and control systems, asset management/maintenance, and document and project management, the company said. The innotec website lists 25 separate modules in the Comos family.
“Our customers will continue to receive outstanding service and support in addition to the latest software technology,” said Stephan Rohleder, chief operating officer at innotec, in a statement announcing the impending acquisition. “As a part of Siemens, we will provide our customers with a strong partner and investment security.” Siemens would not divulge its plans for innotec employees, who number approximately 200.
According to a research note written by Larry O’Brien, process automation research director at ARC Advisory Group, “The acquisition of innotec continues the path that Siemens laid out for itself when it acquired PLM supplier UGS, which is to provide a superior value proposition from the early stages of the plant and product design lifecycle through the operational and lifecycle phase. innotec will give Siemens the same capability to provide this data transparency and seamless data flow for process plants that UGS did for the company in discrete manufacturing applications.”
Following its acquisition of UGS, Siemens last summer discussed plans to become a full “solutions” provider in both the discrete and process automation markets, and to grow the company’s factory automation business at twice the market rate.
In a November 2007 report, ARC Advisory Group projected between 6.5% and 7% growth in the combined discrete and process automation markets over the next couple of years. The markets totaled approximately $95 billion in 2006.
Siemens will house innotec in Siemens’ Industry Sector as part of its Industrial Automation Systems business unit. Siemens today provided no additional details on the pending acquisition, except to say that it expects the transaction to close by the end of the year.