2006-06-13 - ABB Limited has appointed James Large as Product Manager for its low voltage industrial automation products, including the new AC500 PLC.
With over 16 years of experience in automation technologies, Large will be responsible for driving ABB’s strategy to grow its share of the PLC market to at least £1m by 2008.
Large’s past experience includes positions at Schneider Electric, where he was Automation Solutions Consultant, and at IMO Precision Controls as Automation Applications Engineer. He hopes to use this experience to help ABB identify suitable niche areas for its PLC offering.I hope to significantly increase ABB’s market share for automation products, by delivering not only the products to meet our customers’ needs but also levels of service and support previously unseen in the market to back them up.
In particular, Large will be aiming to boost ABB’s market share for automation products through its OEM and technical distributors, and will be focusing on targeting key customers such as machine builders and plant manufacturers.
James Haigh, General Manager for ABB low voltage products, which will sell the AC500 PLC as part of its portfolio, says: James Large’s appointment as Product Manager for PLCs is an instrumental part of our strategy to promote and sell both the AC500 and ABB’s other automation products in the UK. With the arrival of the AC500, we can now offer a truly competitive PLC to complement our range of LV components, switchgear, drives, motors, robots and instrumentation, giving our customers a true one-stop shop for their automation products and systems.
Available through ABB’s low voltage products division, the AC500 PLC will complement ABB’s existing AC31 PLC and the established AC800 DCS family of controllers.
The AC500 forms a key part of ABB’s strategy to dramatically increase its share of the £55million market for PLCs and HMIs by 2009 and is being aimed primarily at OEMs and plant operators looking for a system that can be readily expanded to meet changing requirements. Typical potential applications for the system range from water pumping for utilities, through to complex heavy industrial applications, such as automating plastics machinery processes.