Telford tales
15 Jan 2000
As mentioned elsewhere on the page, last month Telford in Shropshire, played host to the Drives & Control exhibition. Engineering has come a long way from the forges and smithies that gave neighbouring Ironbridge its claim to fame as the `birthplace of engineering', but as Telford is now home to a sizeable slice of the Japanese electronic industry, Drives & Control seems to have found a spiritual home.
Amongst the `non-product' news breaking at the show was Rockwell Automation's announcement that its UK managing director of the past four years, Keiran Coulton, is to become the parent company's vice-president global sales, based at the HQ in Milwaukee. He is the first Briton to hold such a senior position.
Along with Schneider, another new identity to be flagged up was that of the former Cegelec companies. Following their recent acquisition by Alstom, they have now all taken that name, as in Alstom Drives & Controls.
Meanwhile ABB, a company once associated with more than its fair share of name changes and mergers and acquisitions, carries on regardless. That said, ABB did announce a new business `process'. This is Comp-AC, its up-to-the-minute `e-commerce' web site from which users can select, order and pay for low power drives of 0.37 to 37kW. http://www.comp-ac.co.uk
