Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, today announced that IMA Automation has successfully deployed RapidLaunch, a new platform from Rockwell that offers a globally accepted, scalable, multi-lingual, automotive controls standard.
IMA Automation, a division of IMA Group, has successfully demonstrated the capabilities of the RapidLaunch platform in the design, virtual test, and build of a prototype box cell developed for the assembly of electrical vehicle e-motors. The Italian machine builder is now looking to deploy it for future technologies it is developing for the assembly of other EV drivetrain modules, especially for the North American market.
Designed to address the faster implementation demanded by the automotive industry, the pre-engineered, streamlined, and systematic development environment offered by RapidLaunch is ideal for simpler and quicker development, testing, and deployment of new production cells, lines, and processes. Central to its functionality are the standard code library and automatic code generation, which can be used for automotive-specific equipment and complete machines or processes, such as battery pack assembly or final assembly.
Paolo Butti, global vice president, OEM and emerging industries, Rockwell Automation, explains: “IMA Automation knows from experience that the pace of change within the automotive industry means that it must design, test, prove, and install assembly and process technologies faster than ever before, or the opportunities will simply pass it by. For this reason, RapidLaunch will become an incredibly powerful development and operational tool.”
Standardization is a powerful business strategy, delivering efficiencies at every stage of a technology’s lifecycle. This is especially true at the design stage, where it allows OEMs to develop solutions much faster, allowing their customer to react with more agility to changing market trends. What RapidLaunch offers is a pool of scalable and reuseable pre-engineered hardware and software solutions that can help remove vital days, weeks and potentially even months off the critical path.
“Automotive is a growing market for our assembly technology,” said Lorenzo Maldarelli, vice president, IMA Automation Sector. “We also want to grow our presence in the North American market, so RapidLaunch is the ideal candidate to support and speed our development efforts. We are already seeing significant time and development gains from the automatic code generation, more than 50% of which is ready to use, out of the box. We also anticipate huge potential from the Emulate3D dynamic digital twin software, especially the plug-and-play of real PLC code for a realistic emulation of the machines.”
