WEG acquires AI and machine vision start-up

As part of its increasing investment in digital technologies, WEG has acquired control of a new artificial intelligence (AI) business. Mvisia is a Brazil-based machine vision start-up that specialises in applying AI tools in industry. WEG’s acquisition of the start-up is part of the company’s strategy to grow its digital offering and meet Industry 4.0 demands.

With the new agreement, WEG owns a 51 per cent share of the capital of Mvisia, with the potential to increase its participation in the future. The acquisition is part of WEG’s continuous strategy to add new features to its digital products and services. This includes WEG Digital Solutions and the recent Internet of Things (IoT) WEGnology platform.

While it is a start-up, Mvisia is already established one of Brazil’s leading companies in the realm of computer vision. The start-up has developed its own vision systems and software and bolsters strong expertise in embedding machine learning algorithms with manufacturing execution systems (MES).

Acquisition of Mvisia allows WEG to integrate this new technology into the existing WEGnology® platform. WEGnology is a powerful tool for for advanced data collection and visualisation. Designed for industrialapplications, WEGnology allows plant managers to gain a better understanding of the large amount of data coming from modern factory floors — this includes data from machine sensors, motors, actuators, and drives.

For WEG, an established and global manufacturer of these types of industrial equipment, Mvisia provides a mature and scalable technology solution to add to the existing WEG portfolio.

“With this acquisition, we can include a technology for capturing, filtering, processing and storing data through images in our existing products,” explained Carlos José Bastos Grillo, digital business director at WEG. “The system will be capable of sending accurate and real-time information to the cloud, enabling control of aspects such as productivity, security, number of defects and dimensions.

“The technology can generate automatic insights into quantitative and qualitative attributes of products, as well as training the neural networks of the algorithms with the behaviour of specific processes through the use of static or moving images.”

WEG’s investment in Mvisia is the third acquisition since the company accounted its new digital strategy in June 2019. Along with its other investments, the acquisition of Mvisia will accelerate WEG’s development of industrial technologies for Industry 4.0.