According to foreign media reports, Yaskawa, Japan, is acquiring a share of its joint venture with Siemens, Germany, in the field of industrial drive systems, so that it can fully control all its business and become a wholly owned subsidiary of Yaskawa on November 1.

The joint venture is called Yaskawa Siemens Automation & Drives (YSAD), which will be renamed Yaskawa Automation Drives (YAD) after acquisition.

The YSAD joint venture was established in October 1999 between the automation and drive departments of Anchuan and Siemens. The aim is to increase the market share of the two companies by complementing industrial-driven products and technologies, especially Siemens, which hopes to increase its penetration into the Japanese market. At that time, Siemens Automation and Drive Group said that its cooperation with Sichuan Motor meant that Siemens had made a decisive market breakthrough in Japan.

At the beginning, the joint venture made very good progress, less than a year after its establishment, it expanded its products to low-voltage controlled distribution. However, in recent years, the market environment of industrial drive system has changed. The automation industry is experiencing a revolution of industrial 4.0, which makes Anchuan have new ideas.

Anchuan Motor takes drive control, motion control, robotics and system engineering as its axis, and takes "energy-saving, environmental protection, debugging and mechanization of industrial equipment" as its important development direction to provide overall solutions for the industry. In October 2017, Anchuan Electric introduced the i3-Mechatronics concept, aiming to achieve a new revolution in automation, which is also part of its long-term business plan.

I3 in i3-Mechatronics refers to integration, intelligence, innovaTIve, that is, integration, intelligence and innovation. Anchuan Electric tries to achieve more intelligent manufacturing solutions through the combination and integrated control of its own robots, motors and other automated parts. The i3-Mechatronics concept applies to Mechatronics products, such as servo drives, AC drives and industrial robots.

Anchuan Robot Products

Anchuan Electric Machinery has a good competitiveness in the world, YSAD is suitable for industrial drive system. Therefore, Anchuan Electric decided to turn YSAD, the former joint venture company, into its subsidiary company, expecting to further promote the concept of i3-Mechatronics.

After the acquisition, YAD will maintain a strategic partnership with Siemens to provide the corresponding systems and solutions. At the same time, YAD will continue to provide system application solutions and the combination of products with Anchuan Electric Machinery.

Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing represent the new process of automation industry. The new model will integrate many advanced technologies such as Internet of Things, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Robot, so that factory users can obtain higher production efficiency, can quickly respond to market demand, realize the manufacturing capability of multiple products in the same production line, and can provide customized services.

Automation enterprises optimize and upgrade their product mix to meet the needs of the industrial environment in the 4.0 era. Stronger controllers and automation components may make automation enterprises more competitive.