Walter-Comara joint venture supports manufacturers with Industry 4.0

Walter has joined with long-standing software partner Comara to create a new company under joint leadership.

“This is a key step in our drive to provide our customers in North America and around the world with smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 solutions,” said Mirko Merlo, president of Walter AG.

Walter, now with the majority stake in the new company, is continuing to pursue its evolution from a tool manufacturer to a provider of comprehensive production technologies. Comara, meanwhile, has been working closely with Walter since 2012 on connectivity and smart manufacturing issues, building on its strengths in collecting, evaluating, and using real-time data to connect machines. Together with Walter, the company also develops software for connecting all devices in the production environment, including machines, tools, logistics equipment, and databases.

The synergies made possible by the new Walter-Comara collaboration will enable Walter to digitize and to connect tools with greater precision and sophistication and optimize them using real-time data, according to the company. Using the existing Walter Tool·ID system, the user can transfer tool data from the presetting device to the machine tool and evaluate the parameters that are run on the machine.

With its appCom technology, Comara offers machine manufacturers and industrial companies their own platform for individual apps designed for the production environment. In collaboration with Walter, Comara intends to develop additional systems and make them available to machine and device manufacturers and end users.