Trendsetting technological innovations, the consistent further development of its product range and the expansion of its worldwide sales network are the three pillars on which the success of Beckhoff Automation stands. The company finished the preceding financial year once again with a strong growth rate of 22 % and achieved global turnover of 232 million euros with its 1,050 employees.

“In 2007, the export proportion of the total turnover of Beckhoff was 44 %. Our mid- and long-term growth prospects continue to be globally orientated,” explains Managing Director Hans Beckhoff. “Accordingly, we will be consistently densifying our global sales network still further.” Activities on the Indian market and in the United Arab Emirates were strengthened last year by the foundation of Beckhoff branch offices. Beckhoff subsidiaries are due to open in Turkey and Slovenia in 2008. Beckhoff is represented worldwide in over 60 countries by a total of 21 own subsidiaries and by distribution partners.

"The positive development of previous years continued during the first quarter of 2008. We are once again currently more than 20 % up on last year. A serious economic downturn cannot presently be discerned worldwide,” says Hans Beckhoff.

Fast control technology – advantage for the engineering industry

In the field of technological innovations, Hans Beckhoff primarily sees fast control technology as a competitive advantage: “Beckhoff is the world leader in the field of high speed machine controllers. The XFC technology (eXtreme Fast Control Technology) introduced by Beckhoff currently allows an improvement in the reaction rate of a machine controller by a factor of 10.” The basis for this is an optimised control and communication architecture, which consists of a modern Industrial PC, ultra fast I/O terminals, the EtherCAT Ethernet system, and the TwinCAT automation software from Beckhoff. This leads to better control quality and faster sequences on the machine, so that the material, energy and production efficiency is significantly optimised. The use of XFC technology hence increases the profitability of production while at the same time improving the ecobalance. Economy and ecology benefit in equal measure from eXtreme Fast Control Technology!