With industrial educaction becoming more and more important as companies around the globe seek to fill the skills gaps they're facing, a merger promises to bring even more "intuitive learning" modules to the companies and universities that need them. Festo Didactic, the education division of global industrial automation vendor Festo Group, has acquired U.S./Canadian company Lab-Volt. The combined company expects to offer a much broader range of products and services through our sales network in over 100 countries worldwide.
The Didactic subsidiary of Festo employs 500 people worldwide. It is a developer of “intuitive learning systems” used by universities, colleges and industrial companies all over the world. The company’s “learning factories” and training facilities are offered in conjunction with training and e-learning programs in more than 40 languages.
New Jersey-based Lab-Volt was founded in 1934 and employs more than 250 people. Its daughter company in Québec, Canada operates as the main production site. Lab-Volt has a very strong portfolio of integrated learning systems and modular multimedia education programs in the electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering and telecommunication fields. Lab-Volt will subsequently be integrated as a part of the Festo Group.
What characterizes the learning systems of both companies is “their high practical relevance through the use of real industrial components combined with the intuitive way of teaching educational content,” said Dr. Nader Imani, CEO of Festo Didactic Inc. and Festo Didactic Ltd. Both companies make “the technologies and processes used in automation immediately more tangible and visually understandable,” he said.
Both companies are well known in the international technical education market with products such as MPS (Modular Production System) or FACET (Fault-Assisted Circuits for Electronic Training). These educational products “enable learners to accumulate the real and practical experience they need to work independently and to contribute to a company’s productivity,” said Imani.
“Lab-Volt complements Festo Didactic’s product range, making it the most comprehensive portfolio in the international training and development market for technical education solutions,” added Imani. “Festo Didactic’s acquisition of Lab-Volt will result in a much stronger presence for both companies in the international market for technical education.”
The merger gives all employees at both companies a considerably strengthened basis to develop their product range and to deal with business in the international market, said Imani. “The jobs at all sites have been secured and the setup of the joint activities will be designed in detail in the integration phase of the two companies,” he added.
