Moog Acquires Animatics

Integrated servos and motor-driver technology pioneer Animatics has announced that it has been acquired by Moog Inc., a leading motion control company with a market capitalization of over $1.8 billion. "This is a historic and powerful next step in the evolution of Animatics," says Doug Parentice, president of Animatics.

Animatics' integrated servos or SmartMotors, linear actuators and control electronics are used in a variety of industrial, medical and defense applications including factory automation, flight simulation and camera and weapons stabilization. Animatics' products solve a broad array of challenging problems, particularly when multi-axis coordination is essential.

"The acquisition of Animatics brings several very strong products to our motion technology portfolio, as well as a sophisticated distribution network that reaches hundreds of customers world-wide," says Larry Ball, president of Moog Components Group.

For more than a decade, Moog has supplied the core motor components to Animatics for their most popular SmartMotor product lines. "We had an advantage when it came to understanding the importance of this technology," adds Ball, "We could see the success first-hand by the growth of our own sales to Animatics and how they were dramatically outpacing the growth of the industry itself."

Animatics, with offices in California, New York, Germany and Tokyo, did correctly anticipate the direction of the industry when it developed the technology and drafted the patents detailing the inclusion of microprocessors, power supplies and power transistors directly into the motors themselves.

"SmartMotors simply make machine design fun," says inventor and co-founder Robert Bigler, "Machine designers no longer have to waste time and money laying out cabinets full of wires and controls. They can just focus on the fundamental machine elements, sprinkle some SmartMotors throughout and network them together. An array of SmartMotors makes one simple system capable of controlling not just the motion, but the whole machine."

Bigler claims that machines developed with SmartMotors are reported to get to market faster, perform more reliably and prove easier to service.

"What makes this deal so exciting is that Moog has a history of building up the companies it takes in," says Bigler, "adding resources to build long-term shareholder value instead of stripping them down for the short-term appearance of financial gain."

A press statement says Moog is planning no changes to the Animatics organization except to expand upon its existing technologies, facilities and channels to market.

"Animatics is not a company that needs fixing," says Ball, "They also happen to be an outstanding financial performer, turning a profit even during the downturn and expertly financing their outstanding growth with only internally-generated cash. It will be fascinating to see what they will accomplish now, with some real power and additional Moog technology behind them."