Speaking at PI North America’s General Assembly Meeting last week in Phoenix, Keith Jones, president of system integrator Prism Systems, insisted that there’s a growing need for tighter integration between automation vendors and integrators. We’re seeing it across all industries—the growing level of complexity in automation systems means increased demand for the combination of technical and domain expertise. The integrators need the technical expertise from the automation suppliers, and the vendors need help executing projects for their customers.
Rockwell Automation emphasized that point this week as it scooped up the largest independent system integrator in North America, Maverick Technologies. Rockwell cited its motivation to expand domain knowledge and also to help deliver complete solutions to customers in several different industries, including chemical, food and beverage, and oil and gas. The acquisition significantly strengthens Rockwell’s expertise in key process and batch applications, the company said.
“Industrial control and information solutions are most effective when they result from close collaboration between a knowledgeable supplier and the user,” said Ken Champa, senior vice president of control products and solutions for Rockwell. “The combination of our global industrial automation leadership with Maverick’s platform-independent domain expertise will help our customers reduce complexity and realize unprecedented productivity.”
Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are trends that make it particularly important for vendors and integrators to collaborate more closely. Rockwell pointed to what it calls the Connected Enterprise, noting that the acquisition helps support this growth strategy aimed at connecting information across the plant floor with the entire enterprise to drive new business value. This is particularly important to process customers, whose uptime and continuous performance are critical.
“We will continue to deliver our domain expertise, now with the power of a Fortune 500 industrial automation leader at our side,” said Paul Galeski, Maverick’s founder and CEO. “This creates the best combination available to help uncover the benefits of information that drives performance in process industries.”
Maverick is headquartered in Columbia, Ill., with 21 locations in the U.S. and more than 300 engineers and technical salespeople.
