Beckhoff opens new North American headquarters office, warehouse

Beckhoff Automation has its world headquarters in Verl, Germany and reports global sales of over $530 million in 2012 (based off euro currency conversion).

The new Savage building, fully clad in Minnesota-sourced limestone of the same variety used in the Minnesota Twins’ home of Target Field, has more than triple the available space of its previous facility in three key areas: the general office space, warehouse and repair center. The new Beckhoff warehouse measures 15,000+ sq. ft. while the state-of-the-art the Industrial PC repair center with exceptional ESD protection is 1,660+ sq. ft.

“Beckhoff Automation LLC first entered the North American market back in 1999 and has averaged sales growth rates of over 20% every year,” recounted Graham Harris, President, Beckhoff Automation. “Having joined the company in 2002, I have witnessed growth from a small, ambitious and young automation subsidiary into a $50 million regional business for Beckhoff Automation GmbH. By building our own ultra-modern facility in Savage, we have set the stage to grow Beckhoff’s North American operations even further. In addition, we will continue our role in growing the position of the Minneapolis area, and particularly Savage, as a notable destination for automation and high tech industry in the U.S.”

Leveraging Beckhoff‘s own hardware and software for advanced building automation, Beckhoff’s new North American headquarters is as energy efficient as it is comfortable.  The building’s lighting, heating/cooling, ventilation, and window facades are all automated via PC-based control to reduce energy consumption. Daylight harvesting to set light levels is a major part of the system and the external environment is used for heating/cooling whenever possible. The Beckhoff control platform easily communicates with the wide variety of devices used in today’s intelligent buildings.

For example, DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) is used to connect the Beckhoff I/O system to light ballasts, MP Bus is used to connect to the variable air volume boxes, BACnet is integrated for the building’s boilers and rooftop units, SMTP is used to send maintenance personnel email alerts when needed and Ethernet TCP/IP is heavily utilized.

Regarding Ethernet, Beckhoff’s new Savage office has a “triple redundant” infrastructure, with full connectivity assured via Cat 6 network cabling, fiber optic and cable media.