ETG welcomes Witron as 5,000th member

At the SPS IPC Drives 2018 exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany, the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) achieved two milestones: It celebrated 15 years since ETG was established with 33 founding members, and with the addition of Witron Logistics + Informatics GmbH, ETG welcomed its 5,000th member.

An award ceremony marking the occasion took place at SPS IPC Drives 2018, and Josef Uschold, head of PLC development, accepted the award on behalf of Witron.

Uschold explains why Witron chose EtherCAT: “For Witron, it is essential to deploy the fastest and most deterministic fieldbus with simple configuration, installation and integrated diagnostics. The decision to select EtherCAT was the logical conclusion. Furthermore, EtherCAT is characterized by a very stable data flow and can be reliably transmitted via optical data transceivers. The technology is future-proof and the preferred standard of numerous drive manufacturers.”

Witron is a medium-sized family-owned company based in Upper Palatinate in Bavaria, which, as a general contractor, specializes in the planning and production of logistics and material flow systems. Founded in 1971, Witron is now one of the world’s market leaders in the planning, realization and operation of highly dynamic storage and picking systems used in intralogistics applications.

EtherCAT Technology Group’s membership has grown by more than 500 members in 2018 alone. The international market plays a prominent role; more than half of the members are headquartered outside Europe, with Asia having the highest growth rate.

Martin Rostan, executive director of ETG, is delighted with the new milestone: “EtherCAT technology is simply convincing – this is also clear when looking at the ETG. With more than 5,000 member companies from 65 countries, we are advancing into a dimension that previously seemed out of reach for such associations. We are already the largest fieldbus organization in Asia, Europe and North America, and there is no end in sight to this growth.”