Siemens Acquires Optical Inspection Specialist Opto-Control

To ensure the highest possible quality, process controls and automated inspection are becoming increasingly more important in electronics manufacturing. AOI systems help operators as well as process engineers to optimise their processes and monitor the production output. The newly expanded Siplace portfolio now combines AOI systems from Opto-Control with the market-leading Siemens SMT placement machines, enabling the high process reliability requirements in electronics manufacturing to be implemented even better than before.

The business with AOI systems will be integrated into the Optical Solutions (OI) unit of A&D’s Electronics Assembly Systems division, where it will benefit from Siemens A&D’s global sales and service network. Siemens wants to take advantage of this structure to significantly expand its system with fully automated 3-D inspection systems in the future.

The Siemens Automation and Drives Group (A&D), Nuremberg, Germany, is the leading manufacturer in this field worldwide. Products supplied by A&D include standard products for the manufacturing and process industries and for the electrical installation industry as well as system solutions, for example for machine tools, and solutions for whole industries such as the automation of entire automobile factories or chemical plants. Supplementing this range of products and services, A&D also offers software for linking production and management (horizontal and vertical IT integration) and for optimizing production processes. A&D employs 60,800 people worldwide and in fiscal year 2005 (to September 30) earned a group profit of €1,210 billion on sales of €9.844 billion and orders of €10.190 billion.