NEW SERVO AND AUTOMATION PLAYER POSITIONS ITSELF FOR FULL RECOGNITION
March 2004

Hitachi servo drive equipment is being made available in the UK for the first time, following the appointment of Great Yarmouth-based Silverteam as its agent for drives and automation equipment to replace HID, who represented Hitachi for over ten years.

Silverteam will arrange the supply of the full range of Hitachi inverter drives, which includes V/F and vector variants and is soon to be expanded by the addition an ‘intelligent inverter block’.

An IP54 drive has also been added to the range, designed specifically for HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) applications. Stuart Harvey, Managing Director of Silverteam, says: “Building services is a new market for us, although the Hitachi name is already well respected for other construction products. We are looking for some specialist companies to partner with, and reckon we can become the number three supplier in a £15m market within the foreseeable future.”

He is also very excited by a PLC-based BMS (building management system) that Silverteam has developed. The PLC in question is an Hitachi unit, and Silverteam will be promoting the whole range to both the construction and industrial sectors. According to Harvey the smaller PLCs are particularly impressive, being very highly spec’d yet attractively priced.

“OEMs find them very attractive, and we already have considerable interest from diverse fields such as food processing machinery makers, compressor manufacturers and medical laboratories.”

Silverteam also offers well known Hitachi software packages such as Drives Manager and Actwin – a Windows based PLC programming software package – and a range of complementary products such as EMC filters and power quality devices. It is also responsible for training, field service and repairs on behalf of Hitachi, functions that will be carried from its new headquarters building in Yarmouth’s prestigious Breydon Centre.