Robotics and Drives taken over by AIR
Automated Industrial Robotics Inc (AIR) have announced the acquisition of Robotics and Drives, the Mullingar firm founded in 2005 by Ken McNevin, Stephen Nolan and Sharon McNevin.
In a statement on Monday, AIR said the transaction reinforces its presence in Europe, strengthens its ability to integrate robotics into its automated systems and adds to its product portfolio.
The transaction was funded primarily by an additional investment from an Ares Management Private Equity fund. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Robotics and Drives develops intelligent robotics tailored to customer needs with the goal of increasing quality, efficiencies and competitiveness.
In addition, it delivers a range of standardised robotic offerings that are easy to install and mobilised with minimal downtime.
Robotics and Drives is one of the largest robotics providers in Ireland and has customers in food and beverage, medical devices, personal care, pharmaceutical, and industrial cloud solutions. It employs 50 and operates from a 32,000-square-foot facility in Mullingar, which also serves as an integrated robotics training centre.
RDS’s capabilities in robotic software development and systems design expand AIR’s offering. As part of AIR, research and development will continue to drive innovation at RDS, the statement read.
Ken McNevin, managing director of RDS, said: “We are proud of the leading position RDS has earned in Ireland thanks to our team’s technical expertise and strong customer focus, and we are pleased to join AIR and facilitate RDS’s next phase of development.
“We are confident that AIR will help us further strengthen our customer service and offering, and we look forward to contributing RDS’s unique robotics capabilities for application across the entire AIR organisation.”
With the addition of RDS and its team of engineers, AIR now has some 500 employees and an automation hub footprint of over 300,000 square feet across the United States, Ireland and the UK.
AIR also announced Vivian Farrell to the role of president of AIR, Ireland.
The current CEO of Modular Automation, which AIR acquired in 2023, Ms Farrell will oversee the implementation of AIR’s growth across all its business units in Ireland, including modular and RDS.