NOVEMBER 5, 2007--SCHUNK GmbH & Co. KG (Lauffen/ Neckar, Germany), a provider of gripping technology and automation, and Vision & Control GmbH (Suhl, Germany), a specialist in industrial image processing, have negotiated a strategic partnership, as a result of which SCHUNK acquired a 28% share in Vision & Control. For SCHUNK, this means the further expansion of its existing product portfolio and development of its solution competence. Vision & Control is applying its know-how in a technological sector with outstanding prospects for the future, developing new sales opportunities, and at the same time gaining a strong partner for global sales.
Customers who previously had to collect and configure the single components for a visually supported gripping system will be able to procure all components from one source, including grippers and all image-processing modules. This significantly reduces not only procurement costs, but also installation costs, because the standardized parts are matched to operate via an interface developed jointly by SCHUNK and Vision & Control.
The first products resulting from the cooperation between Vision & Control and SCHUNK were exhibited at the Motek 2007. The SRV, a further development of the successful Camat series from Vision & Control, is a complete system that can be used without additional peripheral devices and will be available starting the first quarter of 2008. It can be used for practically all tasks in industrial image processing, for example the inspection of workpieces, completeness checks in assembly automation, searching for parts, or positioning axes and angles.
