A history of ABB’s United Kingdom Branch

ABB has been around for almost 40 years, pro­vid­ing automa­tion and pow­er sys­tems to the world. In that time, they have opened branch­es all over the world, like the ABB branch locat­ed in the Unit­ed King­dom. This branch was opened in 1988, after the com­pa­ny acquired British Wheelset, a com­pa­ny that spe­cial­ized in steel com­po­nents for the rail trans­porta­tion indus­try. Ever since that acqui­si­tion in the late 1980s, the ABB Unit­ed King­dom branch has been doing what it can to fur­ther ABB’s robot­ic sales dom­i­na­tion through the region.

One big even for the UK branch of ABB was the 1990 major­i­ty share­hold­ing pur­chas­es of the Kent Group, which formed the ABB Kent Group, accord­ing the ABB UK web­site. The same year, the com­pa­ny bought the UK-based Com­bus­tion Engi­neer­ing Inc., which allowed them to reor­ga­nize their key focus­es to include process automa­tion and instrumentation.

In 1993, ABB UK pro­cured the largest sin­gle order for arc weld­ing ever received – includ­ing orders for the UK’s busiest com­muter net­work. This becomes a trend through­out the 1990s and 2000s as ABB’s UK branch con­tin­ues to gain con­tract after con­tract, as well acquir­ing more com­pa­nies, which fur­ther expand­ed its growth.

Then, in 2006, ABB UK, as well as ABB world­wide, replaced its two core divi­sions – automa­tion and pow­er – and replaced it with five key busi­ness areas, accord­ing to the web­site. These areas includ­ed automa­tion prod­ucts, process automa­tion, pow­er prod­ucts, pow­er sys­tems and robot­ics. These dif­fer­ent busi­ness areas con­tin­ue to grow today, just as ABB’s UK branch con­tin­ues to grow exponentially.

If you are inter­est­ed in automat­ing your facil­i­ty with prod­ucts from ABB, or prod­ucts from one of sev­er­al oth­er top robot com­pa­nies, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.