Serving the drives industry
With a history spanning almost a century, the global REO team has built its success on quality manufacturing and the ability to adapt to the needs of control panel manufacturers, drives and motor manufacturers and systems integrators, whatever the economic and technical challenges. Here Michelle Gillam of REO UK explains where the UK team fits in.
Although hugely varied in scope, projects from these communities all have one thing in common: the need for reliable, safe and energy-efficient power control systems.
Challenges of serving the drives industry
In the UK, we’ve gained a reputation as a leading supplier of vibratory feeder controllers. For example, these are used in bowl and hopper applications, such as hopper and inline setup where a variable frequency controller is needed for the bowl and a fixed-frequency control is also required.
However, here at REO, we hope that in the next couple of years we will become the supplier of choice of peripheral products to the drives industry. This is a market where we are already very strong but one that we anticipate will grow substantially.
According to Swiss bank Credit Suisse, the global automation market is growing twice as fast as industrial production, with one of the highest operating margins of any sector of industry. The discrete factory automation market is valued at $72bn and the process automation market at $83bn.
“The UK industrial automation sector went into the recession very quickly and has come out of it very quickly as well,” explained Steve Brambley of the Variable Speed Drives manufacturing industry’s trade body GAMBICA in a recent article in Automation magazine. “This is compared to other sectors like the process sector and instrumentation, where power station and chemical plant projects for example are much bigger and more difficult to stop with the onset of a recession.”
REO’s R&D commitment
Focusing heavily on research and development, REO strives to stay ahead of the market and make sure it develops innovative, energy-efficient and EMC compliant solutions for power quality problems.
Appropriately enough, given our own focus on R&D, research and development are one of the key areas where we are able to help our customers; perhaps because of the proactive approach, we take ourselves.
We also deliver a great deal of value during the latter stages of the equipment lifecycle, when the focus switches to maintenance and repair. Here REO provides customers with its unparalleled technical expertise which, for the end-user, translates to superior process efficiency and increased product lifespan.
The product ranges REO specialises in include single and three-phase EMC filters as well as bookcase filters.
Chokes used as passive inductors in electronic filters are also a key area for us. Thanks to their low energy consumption, chokes can be used in AC circuits to limit the current with virtually no energy wastage.
Furthermore, REO’s braking resistor offering includes more than a dozen products, suitable for a variety of applications. From cranes, lifts, electrical locomotives, wind turbines and assembly machines to almost any electrical system requiring accurate control, we believe we can find the solution.
“We think it’s our expertise and a varied product range that marks REO out as one of the leading voices in the electrical controls and power quality products market,” explains Tim Cooke, our new business development manager. “It’s the ability to respond to a customer’s need for energy efficiency and safety that keeps us ahead of the game.
