Yamazaki Mazak is supporting a charity arts festival this summer in Worcester, the home of its European manufacturing plant. The machine tool manufacturer is sponsoring one of 66 elephant sculptures that first appeared in the city’s streets and public spaces on 12 July as part of Worcester’s Big Parade. After eight weeks on display, the elephants will be sold to raise money for St Richard’s Hospice, a Worcester-based organisation that cares for adults with serious progressive illnesses. The Big Parade follows in the footsteps of the Worcester Stands Tall giraffe trail in 2018, which raised £210,000 for St Richard’s Hospice.

For further information
www.worcestersbigparade.co.uk

Forterro, a European provider of ERP software solutions to more than 7000 mid-market production companies, has acquired UK-based 123 Insight Ltd, a provider of MRP/ERP SaaS solutions for manufacturers of all sizes. The acquisition of 123 Insight – Forterro’s ninth in Europe since 2011 and first in the UK – marks an important strategic milestone for Forterro, giving the group its initial footprint in one of Europe’s top industrial production markets. Guy Amoroso and Craig Grant, co-founders of 123 Insight, will continue to support the business in the short-term, with the backing of their existing management team.

For further information www.123insight.com

FANUC is constructing a new technical centre at its Neuhausen site in Germany. The building will provide approximately 6000 sq m of space for the company’s European development centre and technical support organisation. FANUC hopes to open the facility in 2023. Housing over 400 employees, there will be more space for software development and test runs, as well as for functional and application tests on a variety of machines and robots. The technical centre’s machine hall alone will cover more than 2000 sq m. In total, FANUC is investing around €22m million in the building and associated car park.

For further information
www.fanuc.eu

Stauff, a global manufacturer and supplier of precision fluid power products for mechanical, industrial and plant engineering, has signed a five-year strategic partnership with UK-based Unison, a specialist in all-electric tube bending machinery. Unison has supplied Stauff’s global facilities with Unison Breeze electric tube manipulation machines for more than 10 years. The strategic partnership takes the relationship between the two businesses to a new level and reflects the high degree of service and support that Unison has provided to Stauff over that period.

For further information
www.unisonltd.com

Comau has successfully released its next-generation programming platform, a protocol that implements the URDI communications standard to simplify robot programming. This initiative facilitates the complete integration of Comau’s robot family with the Siemens Simatic Robot Library, reducing complexity within machine automation. Now, operators in any sector can easily program one or more Comau robots via the Siemens ecosystem currently used for other applications and processes. Working with a major automotive customer, Comau has reduced configuration and programming costs by 30%.

For further information www.comau.com