Turck Group has acquired Finland-based ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID company Vilant Systems to form a global full-solutions provider able to compete with a handful of UHF RFID companies offering turnkey solutions in Europe. With this acquisition, the firm reports, it can now offer a full solution consisting of hardware, software and integration to large global companies with sites on multiple continents, as well as to small companies that may not have adopted RFID due to the complexity of requiring multiple technology partners.
The company will operate under the name Turck Vilant Systems. Vilant's engineers and management will continue to work out of its existing office in Espoo, Finland, as well as its other three offices in Frankfurt, Germany; Bern, Switzerland; and Gothenburg, Sweden.
Turck's Oliver Merget
Turck and Vilant already have a history of partnering on several projects, including Vilant's railway and paper industry-based solutions. Turck has numerous customers of its hardware, including both high-frequency (HF) and UHF RFID readers and tags primarily used in the logistics and manufacturing markets, especially in automotive. The RFID technology is used for asset management, inventory and supply chain tracking, and for tracking work-in-progress.
The hardware company has found, however, that large customers, such as automotive firms, require RFID-based solutions that can be provided by a single business globally, across multiple manufacturing or supplier sites. "They need a complete solution with contact points around the word that can provide consultation with strong application knowledge," says Oliver Merget, Turck's VP of business unit automation systems.
By joining Vilant's software and middleware—and the engineers who develop it—with Turck's hardware, Merget says, "We can now offer a complete solution" for UHF RFID deployments. The combined offerings are similar to solutions provided by Turck Vilant's competitors, he notes, such as Kathrein and Harting RFID.
Turck Vilant will also be able to provide a single solution to the benefit of smaller companies, Merget reports. Those with 20 to 100 employees typically lack the resources required to hire multiple suppliers to build a solution. "For them," he states, "it's like watching a ping pong game between suppliers." Such back-and-forth requirements made RFID unrealistic without a provider of a single solution, Merget adds.
Vilant's Jessica Säilä
Vilant has a history in the railway and paper manufacturing markets. The company has been seeking opportunities to grow, according to Jessica Säilä, the firm's marketing manager. "Vilant was looking for a strategic partner to expand globally," she says.
The company was founded 16 years ago. For the past five years, Säilä reports, it has been seeking a strategic partner to acquire the majority shares of Vilant. The company identified a short list of potential partners within the last year with which it hoped to combine, one of which was Turck. "They have been a long-term partner," Säilä states, "and we wanted someone who understood what we do."
Vilant has an emphasis on industrial-based solutions. Its active segments are manufacturing, logistics, pulp and paper, asset management, automatic vehicle identification and rail (see Metsa Fibre Boosts Accuracy, Speed of Wood-Pulp Shipments and RFID Drives up Efficiencies at ABB). The company has provided RFID systems for such rail-based customers as SBB Cargo (see SBB Cargo Provides Automated Alerts of Freight Car Movements Via RFID), using hardware from a variety of suppliers, including Turck. "We are a project company—purely a turnkey integrator," Säilä states. "We apply the hardware that will fit the application."
With the acquisition, Säilä says, the company will work with Turck hardware when appropriate, as well as systems from other third-party providers. Existing customers will continue to receive the same service from Vilant, she notes, adding, "We now will have more feet on the ground" globally to address the needs of customers around the world. Vilant will continue to leverage its existing engineers to develop solutions and will train Turck engineers as well. Its offices will remain open.
"We will certainly keep our existing subsidiaries since it is beneficial to be close to customers," Säilä says. Vilant will work with customers through its existing offices. as well teaming up with Turck's local sales forces in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Finland. She predicts that manufacturing in the Czech Republic and Poland will become a growing market for the company, and it expects to serve an increasing demand in the automotive market and others as well.
"Vilant's 10-year compound annual growth rate has been over 20 percent," Säilä says. "We expect an increase with the additional 1,500 salesforce that Turck brings to the table with its 28 global subsidiaries."
