In this Research Note, we examine Beckhoff, a German family-owned industrial automation business, with a secondary focus on building automation hardware and software. Founded in 1980, Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG has 5,500 employees worldwide (March 2024), including over 2,000 engineers. The corporate headquarters in Verl, Germany, is backed up by 23 sales offices in Germany. Their presence in the international market is supported by 40 subsidiaries worldwide and is represented in more than 75 countries by partners. Beckhoff implements open automation systems based on PC Control technology. The product range covers Industrial PCs, I/O and Fieldbus Components, Drive Technology, and automation software. Products that can be used as separate components or integrated into a complete control system, are available for various industries. Their “New Automation Technology” philosophy represents universal and open control and automation solutions that are used worldwide in a wide variety of different applications, ranging from CNC-controlled machine tools to intelligent […]