Cimcorp
Cimcorp Oy is the parent company of Cimcorp Group, a supplier of automation systems for the tire industry. The group specializes in robotics-based automation for the tire, food & beverage, and distribution industries. It designs, programs, and assembles robots, the majority of which are exported. The headquarters of Cimcorp Oy is located in Ulvila, Finland. Cimcorp is a member of Murata Machinery, Ltd. (Muratec) of Japan. History. 1975–1985 Rosenlew Automation. The first mention of a robot factory dates to 1973, when Antti Soini was doing his thesis work on industrial robots at Oy W. Rosenlew Ab. The start of  the robot factory is considered to be in 1975, when Rosenlew made a robot for Kemira that transferred explosive charges from the warehouse to the loading station at the Vihtavuori plant. The biggest project for the department in the early days was the supply of 44 cathode ray tube handling robots to the Finnish Valco CRT factory in Imatra. Modules for the linear transfer robots were developed during the time of this project. For a long time, CRT factories around the world were the main customers for the company. Rosenlew Automation also began to manufacture paint tinting machines in collaboration  with Oy Winter Ab and University of Oulu. In 1981 Rosenlew Automation moved to a factory hall next to highway 2 (from Helsinki to Pori) in Ulvila. In 1984 Rosenlew Automation founded a subsidiary in Illinois, USA - Rosenlew Automation Inc. – to take care of business in the US markets. 1986–1996 Wärtsilä Cimcorp. The name Cimcorp was adopted in 1986 when the company became a subsidiary of Wärtsilä as a result of an acquisition. At the same time as buying Rosenlew Automation Inc. in the USA, Wärtsilä also bought the robotics company GCA Robotics, combined them and named the new company  Cimcorp Inc. At the end of the 1980s, the company built up its business around the block welding robots for ships, but had to abandon the project in 1990. Wärtsilä became Metra and in 1993 sold off the Cimcorp units operating in the United States and in 1996 it also sold Cimcorp, Finland. 1996–2003 Swisslog Cimcorp and Swisslog. The new owner of the company was Swisslog Group of Switzerland, operating in about twenty countries, which aimed to create a supplier group specializing in major logistics. Swisslog’s customers included mail order giant Otto Versand, IKEA, Deutsche Post, Lufthansa, Hewlett-Packard , BMW, Daimler Chrysler, Opel, Bayer, BASF, and the largest retail chain in the world, Walmart. Through this deal, Cimcorp Oy redirected its operations toward order-picking systems for the food & beverage industry, when it began to automate the order picking and handling of products in standard-sized crates. Robots moved and collected crates containing bakery and processed meat products, fruit, dairy products, drinks cans, or bottles. By the late 1990s, Cimcorp had a staff of about 200 and about 30 regular subcontractors in the local region of Satakunta. Its key market areas were located in Europe, South East Asia, and  North America, with exports accounting for 90 percent of sales. Over half of the company’s net sales of 250 million Finnish markkas came from automation systems for the CRT industry. There were only two companies in the global marketplace, Cimcorp and Hirata of Japan, serving about 100 CRT factories. Because of the limited nature of the market and seasonal fluctuations, Cimcorp expanded its business to logistics systems for the retail and industrial sectors. The first clients were the Pouttu meat distribution center as well as AGA and Hartwall, which used gantry robots supplied by Cimcorp to move gas bottles  and drinks crates, respectively. By 1997, over 600 robot systems had been supplied to its clients. In 1999, Cimcorp Oy’s business operations were divided into two companies. Cimcorp Oy continued the company’s robotics business, and a new company was set up for the paint tinting machine business called Corob Oy, half of which was owned by Swisslog and the other half by Tikkurila Oyj. In the 2000s, the company’s business changed and it started to automate food & beverage industry distribution centers and tire manufacturing. The company’s first tire industry customer was Nokian Tyres in 2001. In  2001, Cimcorp Oy extended its premises in UlviIa and founded the new Kiinteistö Oy Ulvilan Logistiikkatalo company, in partnership with the municipality of Ulvila. At that time, Cimcorp employed 220 in Ulvila and 5 in Vantaa. Cimcorp’s name changed to Swisslog Oy in 2002. Swisslog group refocused its strategy and announced that it was going to sell the four companies belonging to the Material Flow&Robotic Systems division, one of which was Swisslog Oy. It also sold Corob to a Vantaa-based company, CPS Color. In March 2003 Swisslog laid off 40 people in Ulvila for a short time, which  had 200 employees at the time. By June the order book had improved and over half of those laid off were back at work. In September Swisslog made a deal worth 16 million euros to automate the distribution centers of the Valio dairies in Jyväskylä and Riihimäki. The order was the biggest Finnish deal in Swisslog’s history. The deal meant that logistics systems sales overtook the previous main line of business, the CRT industry. 2003–2014 Cimcorp. In December 2003 the executive directors of Swisslog Oy bought both Swisslog Oy with its staff of 205 and Ulvilan Logistiikkatalo and returned  to using the name Cimcorp Oy. In 2006 Cimcorp made an important advance for the company in total system deliveries when Hankook Tire of Korea, one of the world’s leading tire manufacturers, ordered an automation system for its new tire factory in Hungary. The deal, worth almost 20 million euros, was one of the biggest in Cimcorp’s history. By 2008 the tire industry had become the most important customer segment for the company, whereas the food & beverage sector accounted for one third of the company’s net sales of 30 million euros. At that time, Cimcorp employed a  staff of 150. Cimcorp founded a new company, CimSolar Oy, to develop an automation system for solar panel manufacturing based on thin film technology. CimSolar Oy, a member of the Cimcorp Group, later changed its name to Cimcontracting Oy. In the summer of 2010, Cimcorp bought the Canadian robotics company RMT Robotics Ltd. RMT Robotics was renamed Cimcorp Automation Ltd at the beginning of 2015. 2014– Cimcorp of Murata Machinery. In the summer of 2014 the Japanese family-owned company Murata Machinery bought Cimcorp and its subsidiaries Cimcontracting Oy and RMT Robotics Ltd. Cimcorp Group then had around 300 employees  worldwide. Murata Machinery employed about 6300 people and its net sales were over 1.6 billion euros. In 2015 Cimcorp employed 230 people in Finland. It received the largest order in its history when the Chinese tire manufacturer Sentury Tire bought an automation system worth close to 30 million euros for its new car tire factory in Thailand. In 2016 the company doubled its net sales compared to 2012. In 2017 the company employed approximately 400 people. Cimcorp hired 40-50 new employees annually from 2016-2018. In the summer of 2018 it was announced that Cimcorp would build new premises  for about 200 engineers, almost doubling the existing production and office space at company headquarters. In spring 2019 Cimcorp opened a new office in Chennai, India. The office will focus on the automation of Indian tire factories. In May 2019 it was announced that the largest grocery retailer in Spain, Mercadona, had ordered fresh produce order picking automation from Cimcorp for its four distribution centers. The value of the giant deal was over 120 million euros and was evaluated to take 1,000 person-years to produce, half of which will be done at Cimcorp and half in its subcontracting chain . Cimcorp had first supplied Mercadona with automation in 2013. Organization. Cimcorp Group is owned by Murata Machinery, Ltd. of Japan. Cimcorp’s headquarters is located in Ulvila, Finland and has subsidiaries in Canada, the US, India and Spain. In Finland, Cimcorp has service points in Helsinki, Lahti, and Jyväskylä. In spring 2019, 330 employees were working at Ulvila and 100 in North America. There were around ten employees in India, in Spain and in the Finnish service points. In 2020 Cimcorp employed over 500 people. Products. By 2019, Cimcorp had supplied its products to over 40 countries in over 6  continents. Its clients include the tire companies Continental, Goodyear, Cordiant, and Tigar Tyres. A tire manufacturing line automated with robots produced by Cimcorp changes the personnel requirement, as where previously 50 factory operators would be needed to take care of a line, only around 20 engineers are needed after automation. The tire industry accounted for approx. 75 percent of net sales in 2017, with the US accounting for a third. In 2018, the tire industry still accounted for over a half, but the share of the food & beverage industry was showing fast growth. Corporate clients also include ICA, the largest  food retail chain in Sweden, Sinebrychoff and Valio where Cimcorp gantry robots pick half of the dairy products flowing through the warehouses at the Riihimäki and Jyväskylä plants.