The international FRABA Group remains on a path of steady growth. In fiscal 2016 (ending December 31), the company, which combines almost 100 years of history with an unceasing commitment to innovation, generated a turnover of 26 million euros. This represents an increase of around 6% over the previous year. This turnover was achieved through the efforts of 190 employees located at offices in Europe, Asia and the USA.
FRABA Holding, located in Heerlen in the Netherlands, controls four subsidiaries. On the product side, POSITAL is a supplier of advanced position sensors for industrial automation and motion control, while VITECTOR specializes in safety technology for industrial doors. The group also includes the R&D subsidiary CENTITECH, based in Aachen, Germany, and CONISTICS, which manufactures position sensors in its advanced factory in Slubice, Poland, 50 km east of Berlin. Production is based on a data-driven 'Mass Customization' business model, in which POSITAL products are put together from standardized components and sub-assemblies in accordance with customer-defined specifications. This approach enables POSITAL to supply a unique combination of an enormous variety of possible products, short delivery times and cost-effective manufacturing. This system can efficiently deliver either large or small orders.
Two important factors in the past year’s success were the introduction of a full range of interface offerings for POSITAL’s high-resolution magnetic 16-bit IXARC self-contained encoders (absolute and incremental) and the rollout of an innovative new family of magnetic kit encoders, an important innovation in the field of motor feedback. These products were announced at the SPS/IPC Drives trade show in Nuremberg, Germany, in late November. The new kit encoders are notably easy to install and give manufacturers of servomotors a completely new alternative to established feedback devices such as resolvers and more expensive optical feedback systems. "With these innovative products and exciting new developments in the pipeline, we expect significantly higher growth for 2017, which we have already seen in our results for the last quarter of FY16 and Q1 of 2017," says Christian Leeser, FRABA Group's majority shareholder and CEO.
