Company Announcements

Elektron Technology announced in October the sale of its Sheen Instruments subsidiary to Industrial Physics for total gross consideration of £1.2 million ($1.6 million). Sheen Instruments manufactures and supplies inspection and testing instruments used in the paint, coating, automotive and other industries. In fiscal 2017, Sheen Instruments’s revenues totaled £2.6 million ($3.5 million).

Moritz Netzsch will join NETZSCH’s Executive Board, effective January 1, 2018. In fiscal 2017, NETZSCH recorded revenues of around €480 million ($533 million).

For the year ending September 30, MTS Systems’ Test sales declined 1.6% to $504.1 million (see IBO 11/30/17). Excluding currency effects, Test sales declined 0.8%. Materials sales accounted for 22% of Test revenues.

In December, Ametek Brookfield named Joseph Plante as division vice president and business unit manager. Most recently, he was president of Diba Industries.

Product Introductions

In November, Shimadzu launched the HITS-TX high-speed impact testing machine, which can perform tensile tests of plastics and resin-based composite materials at a maximum speed of 20 m/s (72 km/h).

In December, Spectro Scientific launched version 7 of its LaserNet 200 Comprehensive Particle Analyzer Series for analysis of particles in lubricating and hydraulic fluids. It features an increased particle counting range of up to 10 million particles/mL without dilution. The Series now consists of four models with the new LaserNet 215 system that includes particle count and ferrous monitor features.

Sales/Orders of Note

In December, Spectradyne announced it doubled the installed base of its nCS1 nanoparticle analyzer this year.