Alstom has completed the acquisition of Bombardier Transportation. The enlarged group has a combined proforma revenue of around €15.7bn and a €71.1bn combined backlog. According to estimates, the rail manufacturing market will grow at a CAGR of 2.3% by 2025. Although the Alstom Group already has an established customer base in France, Italy, Spain, India, Southeast Asia, Northern Africa and Brazil, Bombardier Transportation will bring strong customer proximity in strategic markets such as the UK, Germany, the Nordics, China and North America.

The employees of Bombardier Transportation joined the Alstom Group on 29 January. These new talents will enrich Alstom’s operational profile at all levels and build, with Alstom’s employees, one agile, inclusive and responsible team. In total, the group has 75,000 employees in 70 countries.

Alstom has confirmed its objective to generate €400m cost synergies on an annual run rate basis by the fourth to fifth year, and restore Bombardier Transportation’s margin to a standard level in the medium term.

For further information
www.alstom.com

The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT), together with partners from mechanical engineering, network technology and robotics, is developing an end-to-end real-time-capable communication infrastructure based on 5G mobile technology and time-sensitive networking (TSN). Among the goals of the project is to have highly available, reliable and secure communication of all components and modules: from sensors and actuators at field level via 5G networks and Ethernet connections, to the Fraunhofer Edge Cloud (FEC).

For further information www.ipt.fraunhofer.de

According to a study by OneServe, manufacturers lose between £60,000 and £500,000 a year due to unplanned machine downtime. This figure is staggering, but there are ways for plant operators to avoid it. To find out how, WEG has released a free gearbox guide on maintenance, named ‘What Maintenance Staff need to know about Geared Motors’. The guide is available for free download from the web address below.

For further information www.weg-wg20.com

GKN Aerospace and Eviation have signed a collaboration agreement on wing, empennage and EWIS (electrical wiring interconnection systems) for Alice, Eviation’s ground-breaking regional electric aircraft. Alice is aiming to change the way people travel, by making journeys of distances up to 650 miles more sustainable. As part of the collaboration agreement, design and manufacturing activities are already underway at Eviation (Israel) and in several GKN Aerospace engineering centres across Europe.

For further information
www.gknaerospace.com

According to the latest World Robotics statistics issued by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the world´s 10 most densely robot-populated countries are: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, USA and Belgium (with Luxemburg). Singapore has 918 units per 10,000 employees for the 2019 reporting period, while South Korea has 868. Japan (364 robots per 10,000 employees) and Germany (346 units) rank third and fourth respectively. Sweden remains in 5th position with a robot density of 274 units. The UK is 24th on the list (89 units).

For further information www.ifr.org