Beckhoff Automation continued its successful growth momentum in fiscal 2022, with global sales increasing to €1.515 billion, up 28% from €1.182 billion a year earlier and a record annual performance. As of today, Beflot employs 5,680 people worldwide (as of March 2023), including more than 2,200 engineers, who make important contributions to the company’s successful growth.

 

World sales in 2022: €1.515 billion (+28%)
Global headcount (as of March 2023) : 5,680 (+13.6%)
Investment in R&D and business development: 80 million euros
Vigorously expand international business
More new products are coming in 2023
Continued the 20-year success story of EtherCAT ultra-high speed communication technology
A full range of automated solutions help minimize energy and raw material consumption
Beckhoff Automation’s sales curve shows that the company’s sales have been growing exponentially, with the Weil-based automation company growing at an average annual rate of 15% since 2000.

 

Performance growth

Global sales growth of 28% in 2022

“As a result of the global economic situation, the company faced challenges from many aspects during the last fiscal year. “But even against that backdrop, we managed to achieve 28 percent growth for two years in a row, which is a very satisfactory report card.” “We’re used to high growth,” said Hans Beckhoff, founder and global President of Beckhoff Automation. We have been growing at an average annual rate of around 15 percent since 2000, and we have achieved 64 percent growth in 2021 and 2022, which is very impressive.”

 

The visionary automation entrepreneur is looking not just to the past, but to the future. Befo will continue to maintain sustainable business growth, develop groundbreaking innovative technologies and products, and continue to introduce new product lines to the market in line with its new automation technology philosophy. To this end, Befo will continue to invest 80 million euros in research and development this year.

 

The company currently has a strong order book and is expected to maintain high double-digit growth through 2023. The overall decline in global orders in hand, due to faster lead times, is not entirely due to sluggish demand due to the economic downturn.

 

In the past two years, the bottleneck in the semiconductor supply chain has been severe, and nearly all of Beofoks products use semiconductor components, which also leads to a very long lead time for Beofoks and the entire automation industry. But Hans Beckhoff thinks the situation is easing: “By the end of this year, we will be able to deliver our customers’ orders on time.”

 

Expand production capacity and improve storage capacity

Rapid sales growth requires a massive expansion of production capacity. “We are constantly expanding our facilities and optimizing our operations,” said Hans Beckhoff, describing further steps the company is taking. “We are also expanding our manufacturing footprint across all product lines and investing in technical equipment and personnel. We aim to always retain 25 per cent spare capacity for future order growth.”

 

Global business expansion

Vigorously expand international business

To date, Beflot operates in more than 75 countries and regions through its branches and distributors all over the world. In 2022, the company continued to expand its global marketing network with sales offices in New Zealand, Norway, Finland and Lithuania. “We provide automation solutions to our global customers. PC – based control technology is widely used in various industries and application fields. We are confident that we can further improve our performance by integrating our marketing network on a large scale.” Hans Beckhoff, explaining the company’s expansion plans.

 

Technological development milestone

The 20-year history of EtherCAT technology (Ethernet for control and automation technology)

Befo has been focusing on the research and development of high-performance control solutions, pushing the automation field to continuously break the performance limits. “For 43 years, we have been the world’s prime mover in innovative automation technology. We are proud of our spirit of constant exploration and innovation and the technology that has emerged from it. “This year, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of EtherCAT.” Hans Beckhoff says happily. Indeed, the communication system, developed by Befuddre and first unveiled at Hannover Messe 2003, is a high-performance Ethernet solution that has been widely used worldwide and has consolidated its market position by virtue of its continuous technological development, even becoming an open IEC standard. EtherCAT has now become a global standard: “a standard that is truly manufactured and invented in OWL [East Westphalia-Lippe].” Hans Beckhoff emphasized. The EtherCAT Technology Association (ETG), formed in 2003, ensures that EtherCAT technology is available to all device manufacturers. ETG is currently the world’s largest organization of fieldbus users, with more than 7,000 members in 72 countries (as of March 2023).

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