Marco van der Hoeven

Amazon will acquire iRobot, provider of cleaning robots for the home. Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion, including iRobot’s net debt. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by iRobot’s shareholders and regulatory approvals. On completion, Colin Angle will remain as CEO of iRobot.

ABB is expanding its FlexPicker Delta robot portfolio with the IRB 365. With five axes and 1.5kg payload, the IRB 365 is both flexible and the fastest in its class for reorientating packaged lightweight products such as cookies, chocolates, peppers, candies, small bottles, and parcels.  

UiPath has acquired Re:infer, a natural language processing (NLP) company focused on unstructured documents and communications. Founded in 2015 by Ph.D. scientists from the Centre for Artificial Intelligence at University College London, Re:infer uses machine learning (ML) technology to mine context from communication messages and transform them into actionable data. 

Universal Robots has reported Q2 revenue of USD 83 million. Universal Robots highlights particularly strong growth in global welding demand as being key to its success in the first half of the year. The company has also increased its revenue from Original Equipment Manufacturer [OEM] channels.

According to Gartner, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) remains a popular software market for improving operational efficiency with tactical automation most often happening via screen scraping. In its recently published Magic Quadrant it evaluates 15 enterprise RPA vendors.

Sony Group will develop sensors for autonomous vehicles that use 70% less electricity, helping to reduce autonomous systems’ use of power and extend the range of electric vehicles, reports Nikkei Asia.

At the Farnborough International Airshow Microsoft has announced Project AirSim, a platform running on Microsoft Azure to build, train and test autonomous aircraft through high-fidelity simulation. In realistic environments, AI models can run through millions of flights in seconds, learning how to react to countless variables much like they would in the physical world.

Processing hundreds of thousands to millions of documents can take a lot of time. Computers, however, are very capable of reading, understanding and processing documents. The Groningen-based firm Klippa develops specialised AI-based software to help companies automate administrative work, so that employees can focus on tasks that add more value and are more rewarding.

In a new concept video Lockheed Martin shows what it called Distributed Teams, consisting of a  manned fighter and unmanned dones. The technology is being developed by its famous innovation department, calles Skunk Works, and could be operational witin three years.

“It is in the DNA of our company to always pioneer”, says Carlos Garrido Pedraz, Head of European Business Services in this final edition or our CFO Chat with award winner Holcim. Host Armand Angeli of the CFO Automation Experience discussed teamwork as a success factor in the automation journey with him and his colleague Nikola Kisidayova, Manager Robotics, Automation, Process Improvement and Digitalization. “A motivated, happy team is the best investment.”