FRABA Group Marks Successful 2022 with Growth in Key Areas

The FRABA Group, an internationally recognized leader in industrial position sensors and Wiegand technology, has reported a successful and eventful year in 2022.

June 2, 2023 ­- The FRABA Group, an internationally recognized leader in industrial position sensors and Wiegand technology, has reported a successful and eventful year in 2022. Overall sales were 45 million Euros ($49 million USD). While this number is lower than the 48 million Euros reported in 2021 (largely because of the divestiture of the VITECTOR business unit), sales in the rest of the group were up by 13%.Christian Leeser, FRABA’s CEO and majority shareholder commented, “The sale of VITECTOR, which specialized in safety devices for industrial door systems, has enabled FRABA to refocus its resources on its motion and position sensor business (POSITAL) and on the exciting new Wiegand sensor business (UBITO). While ongoing supply-chain difficulties have hampered growth, we are pleased to have made progress towards our strategic goals, including the launch of exciting new NeXtGen sensor products.” FRABA now has a worldwide fulltime staff of 360, up from 320 in 2021.A significant achievement was the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Malaysia. This new factory will employ up to 60 people and is designed for high-volume manufacture of components such as kit encoders and Wiegand sensors. This facility will complement FRABA’s existing Polish factory, which is optimized for high mix, low volume production of ‘mass customized’ industrial sensors. It will also help the company meet growing demand in Asian markets.A significant development that took place in 2022 was the completion of two major R&D programs carried out by FRABA technical specialists and university scientists. Financial support was provided by the German Ministry for Education and Technology. The first of these programs developed fully-automated processes for the mass-production of Wiegand sensors. The second was focused on the development of a new ‘Wiegand harvester’ capable of capturing over a hundred times as much electrical energy from a moving magnetic field as has been possible with older Wiegand devices. Researchers demonstrated the potential of Wiegand technology by building an autonomous sensor that could transmit data over a distance of 50 metres without external power sources. This marks an important key step towards realizing the dream of self-powered sensor nodes for a wireless Internet of Things. Wiegand technologies are being developed and commercialised under the UBITO brand.

The FRABA group is made up of a closely integrated set of business units that provide technically advanced products and services for industrial customers. The group’s history dates to 1918, when its predecessor, Franz Baumgartner elektrische Apparate GmbH, was established in Cologne, Germany, to manufacture electrical relays. Since then, the company has played a trendsetting role in the development of motion control sensors such as rotary encoders and inclinometers (Sold by the POSITAL business unit) and Wiegand sensors for motion sensing and energy harvesting (UBITO). FRABA has a global reach with subsidiaries in Europe, North America and Asia, along with and sales and distribution partners worldwide.

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