Konica Minolta to drive automated visual inspection business

| 14 June 2019

Acquisition of Eines Systems, Spain-based leading company, will enhance growth in auto visual inspection for automotive industry

Konica Minolta, Inc.(Konica Minolta) announced that it has acquired the Spain-based Eines Systems S.L. (Eines Systems), a leading company in the automated visual inspection market. Based on its high-quality light and colour measurement technologies, Konica Minolta has been enhancing initiatives in the sensing business for the growing ICT and automotive industries, by providing various products and solutions with additional value proposition. The acquisition of Eines Systems will further drive Konica Minolta’s efforts in building on its visual inspection business for the automotive industry.


Aim of Acquisition

Konica Minolta’s sensing business offers various products and solutions in the fields of light source colour measurement and object colour measurement based on the optical technologies developed in its former camera business and continually refined thereafter.

The products and solutions offered by Konica Minolta contribute to improving quality and productivity at customers’ manufacturing sites. As the company has been expanding the business base in its core-competent ICT industry, consisting of products such as LCD displays and OLED screens, it has been driving, as part of its growth strategy, promotion of the development of technologies and products to meet automation needs in the automotive sector.

Eines Systems, as a leading technology company, has competitive edges in the mainstay business for providing automated quality inspection systems and solutions for automotive production process. The company highly excels in the customer-driven agile development for its global customer base.

Currently various processes of visual inspection in the automotive industry largely depend on human eyes, facing challenges such as quality improvement, more stable results and labour saving. Addressing those challenges, Eines Systems has developed automotive painting visual inspection systems in recent years, which have been utilised in European customers. The company is planning further implementation of the systems in regions beyond Europe.

Aligning its efforts in expanding automated inspection market for the automotive sector, Konica Minolta will fully utilise the strengths with its global customer base in the colour and light measurement fields and global networks and take advantage of synergy opportunities from Eines Systems and Konica Minolta’s own optical and imaging technologies. Welcoming Eines Systems, the Konica Minolta Group will accelerate launch of the visual inspection businesses for the automotive industry.The transaction was closed on May 31, 2019.

Overview of Eines Systems

Company name

Eines Systems S.L.

Founded

1992

Headquarters

Valencia, Spain

CEO

Jorge Broto Ruiz

Number of employees

66 (as of May 31, 2019)

Businesses

Development, manufacturing and sales of automated quality inspection systems for automotive production

About Konica Minolta’s Sensing Business

Many Konica Minolta products are used as de facto standard colour measurement instruments. Notably, Konica Minolta has more than a 50% share in the global market for display image quality measurement and inspection (estimated by Konica Minolta), and has a solid presence as the market leader.

Konica Minolta has actively promoted investments to strengthen its competitiveness. In 2012, the company acquired Instrument Systems GmbH (Germany) which develops high-end optical measuring instruments and has an outstanding track record in the high-performance measurement of displays and LED lighting devices. In 2015, the company acquired Radiant Vision Systems, LLC (U.S.) which excels at high-resolution 2D measurement instruments for displays, image processing software, and automatic appearance inspection systems.

Konica Minolta remains committed to developing its measuring instrument business as a market leader by offering various high value-added products and solutions that enable high-precision measurement of light and colour for the ever-growing ICT and automobile industries.

 



About Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc. is a global technology company that provides innovative solutions to businesses and society. With its strengths in the combination of its core technologies in advanced imaging, optics, sensing, materials and nano-processing, Konica Minolta is committed to creating new values supporting customers to address challenges in their operations and work processes. Advancing its expertise in digital technologies, the company has been going through business transformation into a digital company, with insights into implicit challenges across the board as ‘One Konica Minolta’ in the era of Internet of the Things (IoT). Konica Minolta is also active in open innovation through various collaborations and alliances with academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners.Headquartered in Tokyo, Konica Minolta has its Group companies in 50 countries with over 44,300 employees and offers products and services in 150 countries around the world.

About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Konica Minolta enables its clients to champion the digital era: with its unique imaging expertise and data processing capabilities, Konica Minolta creates relevant solutions for its customers and solves issues faced by society. As a provider of comprehensive IT services, Konica Minolta delivers consultancy and services to optimise business processes with workflow automation. The company further offers its customers solutions and managed services in the field of IT infrastructure and IT security as well as cloud environments. With regard to its office printing solutions, ‘IDC MarketScape: Western Europe Smart Multifunctional Peripheral 2018 Vendor Assessment’ stated that Konica Minolta is ‘recognised globally as a leading smart MFP provider of note’. As a strong partner for the professional printing market, Konica Minolta offers business consulting, state-of-the-art technology and software and has established itself as the production printing market leader for more than a decade in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa (InfoSource). In the healthcare sector, Konica Minolta drives digitalisation of clinical workflows and offers a broad range of next-level diagnostic solutions. Its Business Innovation Centre in London and four R & D laboratories in Europe enable Konica Minolta to bring innovation forward by collaborating with its customers as well as academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners. For its solutions that combine ‘smart service with smart technology’, Konica Minolta was awarded the prestigious ‘Buyers Lab PaceSetter Award for Outstanding Serviceability 2018/2019’ from Keypoint Intelligence. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 80 countries in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With almost 10,300 employees (as of April 2019), Konica Minolta Europe earned net sales of over EUR 2.39 billion in financial year 2018/19.

For more information, please visit http://newsroom.konicaminolta.eu/ and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter @KonicaMinoltaEU.

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