ADEPT TECHNOLOGY ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF INDUSTRY LEADING PROVIDER OF TECHNOLOGY FOR THE FOOD PROCESSING MARKET
We are proud to inform our partners and clients that Adept Technology, Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire privately held InMoTx, a provider of industry leading technology for the global food-processing market. With operations based in Denmark, InMoTx enhances Adept’s position in the fast-growing food packaging industry through a broad portfolio of intellectual property dedicated to inspecting, sorting, grading, and hygienically packaging unwrapped natural products improving food safety by eliminating the risk of contamination introduced by manual handling.
"With this acquisition Adept continues to execute on its mission to deliver exceptional value to clients requiring superior levels of flexibility, cleanliness and robustness from primary packaging automation," said John Dulchinos, president and CEO of Adept Technology, Inc. "As was the case with Adept’s acquisition of MobileRobots, this transaction furthers Adept’s strategy to more efficiently transport goods, particularly those in regulated industries, throughout a facility by strengthening the company’s ability to automate the handling of products safely and reliably while offering traceability."
At its inception in 2006, InMoTx strategically targeted the food processing markets where flexible automation has historically been absent in the handling of organic products due to the challenges associated with acquiring natural products. The food manufacturing industry (NAICS 311) was estimated to have shipped over $538 billion in product and employed 1.5 million people in 2006 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau expects that employment will not increase in the industry but output will continue its growth at a rate of approximately 27 percent between 2006 and 2016. The products and services deployed by InMoTx offer critical tools in obtaining the levels of efficiency, flexibility and safety required by producers, consumers and government agencies.
"Becoming a part of Adept’s exacting pursuit of the high-speed packaging market and leveraging their resources and international support infrastructure along with tighter integration of our engineering teams, will accelerate the adoption of InMoTx’ technology and deep portfolio of products dedicated to the handling of natural products," said Preben Hjornet, founder and chief technology officer, InMoTx. "In evaluating numerous vehicles to accelerate the expansion of our business, it was immediately apparent that Adept and InMoTx exhibit synergies across the businesses and cultures of strong customer focus."
The acquisition of InMoTx compliments the introduction of both the Adept PAC and USDA-accepted Adept Quattro™ in expanding Adept's automation presence in meat processing (poultry, fish and red meats) which is estimated to represent placement opportunities of over 75,000 processing lines. The InMoTx team brings unmatched expertise in rapid development of flexible tooling and inspection solutions for the handling of natural products along with applications experience and an established industry network. Upon completion of the acquisition, InMoTx Denmark employees will become part of Adept‘s team and will work with Adept's existing engineering, operations and service teams in Pleasanton, CA, Dortmund, Germany and Singapore. InMoTx’ US operations will be consolidated into the Adept Pleasanton, CA headquarters.
Q & A
Q: Who is Adept Technology, Inc. and what is its business proposition?
Adept Technology, Inc. is a global, leading provider of intelligent vision-guided robotics and autonomous mobile solutions and services with annual revenues of $55M. Adept systems provide unmatched performance and economic value throughout the production lifecycle, enabling customers to achieve precision, quality, and productivity in their assembly, handling, and packaging processes.
Founded in 1983, Adept Technology is the largest U.S.-based manufacturer of industrial manipulators and mobile robots. Adept intelligent automation product lines include high-performance motion controllers, application development software, vision-guidance technology and high-reliability robot mechanisms with autonomous capabilities. Adept provides specialized, cost-effective robotics systems and services to high-growth markets including Packaging, Medical, Disk Drive/Electronics, and Solar; as well as to traditional industrial markets including machine tool automation and automotive components.
Manufacturing its products in Pleasanton, California, Adept markets, distributes, and supports its products worldwide both directly with an employee base of 160 people and through channel partners. Adept’s robotics products and services are the solutions of choice for many industry-leading corporations. More than 30,000 Adept controlled robots are installed worldwide and with the acquisition of MobileRobots in 2010, the company has also deployed over 3,000 mobile platforms boasting millions of miles of autonomous operation. More information is available at www.adept.com.
Q: Who is InMoTx and what is its business proposition?
InMoTx is a leading innovator of flexible handling and packaging solutions with a concentration on delivering automation to the food processing industry. Since 2006 when the Company launched the first OCTOMATION™ Robotics Workforce, InMoTx has delivered systems to many of the world’s top food producers. InMoTx delivers turn-key systems solving the most challenging handling applications, which previously taxed even the most advanced vision and tooling solutions.
InMoTx has developed and offers a broad product range automating a wide variety of food handling requirements including those subject to stringent sanitary regulations. Given its ability to handle non-rigid, non-uniform (or irregularly shaped or sized) objects, InMoTx has been quickly embraced by the food processing industry and is well positioned to serve other growing markets. The InMoTx high performance OCTOMATION™ is enabled with 3 proprietary components:
1. OCTOVISION™ provides the robot with “eyes” so it can determine object location. OCTOVISION can also determine the size of the object and estimate weight all within milliseconds.
2. OCTOGRIPPER™ products are the “hands” that handle the product. The OCTOGRIPPER can handle nearly any item that can be handled with the human hand and can be used with suction applied directly or indirectly to the product.
3. OCTOSOFT™ is the technology that integrates the OCTOGRIPPER with the OCTOVISION. OCTOSOFT provides clear and simple interaction with the system and can be operated by anyone familiar with the basics of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. OCTOSOFT uses symbol (or video) communication when interacting with the operator user type. The robotic cell can be connected to both the customer’s corporate network as well as InMoTx’ service center via the internet, which provides on-call support and monitoring.
Manufacturing its products in Denmark and North Sioux City, SD, InMoTx markets, distributes, and supports its products worldwide both directly and through OEM partners. InMoTx has delivered numerous systems around the globe that are used by leading food processing organizations. InMoTx offers robust and reliable solutions boasting the industry’s most advanced vision, interface, and tooling solutions. More information is available at www.inmotx.com.
Q: Why have the companies agreed to this acquisition?
The companies have recognized business synergies spanning technological roadmaps, market opportunities, and corporate cultures. Adept brings strong brand awareness within its served markets including Packaged Goods, Life Sciences, Disk Drive/Electronics, and Semiconductor/Solar; as well as to traditional industrial markets such as machine tool automation and automotive components. In markets served by the Adept Quattro™ it is expected that Adept’s infrastructure and sales resources will offer accelerated growth and placement opportunities for solutions currently offered by InMoTx to further develop the food processing and packaging markets. Likewise, InMoTx brings strong intellectual property delivered in a modular set of application platforms. It is expected that Adept’s channel will accelerate the deployment of the innovative solutions offered by InMoTx while Adept’s worldwide supply chain will enable the companies to take advantage of an improved cost structure. The merging of technologies and services will provide the team of industry veterans the means to serve historically unmet automation needs of the food processing industry.
The combined company will hasten the industry’s desire to move from temporary and migratory labor which offers high flexibility but understated expenses due to variability, training, associated overhead, and contamination issues associated with the handling of food manually. One area where food producers can significantly reduce contamination is in eliminating human contact. According to the Centre for Disease and Control, approximately 70% of all food borne disease can be traced to viruses spread by direct contact with infected individuals. When all economic impacts associated with contaminated food are comprehended it is immediately evident that applications automated by both the USDA-accepted Adept Quattro and OCTOLOADER™ D IP65 represent exceptional opportunities for many of the over 250,000 worldwide food processing lines.
The majority of food processing industries have invested great care and consideration in how products are handled. However, the challenge has been with products where machinery has not been equipped to deal with variable shapes such as chicken breasts or where products are randomly fed towards a piece of equipment. Traditional processing equipment deals best with laminar flow and order. High-speed processing machinery eliminates human contact and provide producers tremendous throughputs and yield. However, when products are not suitable for these high speed conventional machines, labor tends to be the substitute.
In other manufacturing industries, this gap has been filled with flexible automation. Robotics has proven an excellent bridge between conventional machinery and labor. The Adept Quattro offers the repeatability of conventional or custom machines, combined with the flexibility to deal with randomness and smaller batch sizes which warrant frequent line changes. However, the challenge for food producers in realizing the benefits of this technology has historically been the regulatory environment in which they operate.
Many producers adhere to guidelines set and monitored by regulatory bodies such as the USDA, FDA, AMI and others. Until only last year, when Adept introduced the Quattro s650HS, robots were not suitable or approved by these organizations. Fortunately, InMoTx also recognized this unmet need in 2006 and combined with Adept in 2011 will offer the food industry products which have been accepted by these bodies such that where labor was the only solution in the past, viable solutions now exist that are financially attractive.
This acquisition will uniquely position the company to deliver the cost structure of a vertically-integrated robot manufacturer with the experience, IP portfolio and nimbleness of an experienced systems provider. Offering a full suite of systems that directly meet the needs of food processors to reduce labor costs, improve yield, and uniquely market products in an increasingly competitive marketplace make the acquisition of InMoTx a strategic step in creating greater value for Adept clients and partners.
Q: What are the growth opportunities that are presented as a result of the acquisition?
Accretive value will be generated though the immediate sale of the InMoTx OCTOMATION suite through Adept’s direct sales force and through its extensive distribution network. Leveraging long standing customer relationships, Adept will market InMoTx solutions to the food processing industry which is quantified by the over 250,000 processing lines located throughout the world.
With the enhanced capabilities delivered by the combined entity, robots become a more attractive solution for two primary areas on processing lines:
1. Picking has historically been the more challenging of the two areas given that robots must handle non-rigid, non-uniform, and randomly-oriented food products. Vision systems are critical in picking applications because the system has to determine the orientation and correct placement of the product.
2. Robotic packaging of food is segmented into primary and secondary packaging. Primary packaging (or loading) is the placing of foods into the first wrapper or layer of packaging. Secondary packaging has the robot inserting the primary wrapped food into the next layer of packaging, such as a box, case, carton, or tray.
The Adept Quattro s650HS is the industry’s only USDA-accepted parallel-linked robot specifically designed to optimize the handling of primary food products. Combining the robot’s best-in-class speed with the extensive suite of InMoTx platforms in which the robot can be delivered, Adept will focus its near-term market development towards the proteins space which includes poultry, fish and meat. These markets account for over thirty percent of the $538B USD market and have demonstrated the lowest adoption rates of flexible automation including robotics of any of the packaging areas according to the Packaging Machine Manufacturers Institute (PMMI).
Beyond placements subject to USDA and FDA requirements, OCTOMATION solutions are suitable and have been placed in applications spanning primary product handling to final pack-out in industries handling vegetables and confectionary products to IV bags and pharmaceuticals.
