In August, Regal Rexnord hosted a group of individuals from the industrial press at its downtown Milwaukee headquarters to get to know the company and its diverse portfolio a little better. “We create a better tomorrow with sustainable solutions that power, transmit and control motion,” pledged Scott Curley, senior vice president, sales and marketing, at Regal Rexnord. “This drives our business decisions and investments. The most important asset we have is people and their values. Clearly, for me, customer success, innovation with purpose and performance are important. When we look at water usage on conveyance systems at Molson Coors, it addresses their sustainability challenges.”
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With 250 global sites, 150 of them are manufacturing units, and more than 30,000 global associates—9,100 in United States; 8,400 in Mexico; 5,200 in Europe—sustainability is a priority for Regal Rexnord. “We’re committed to achieving carbon neutrality, scopes 1 and 2, by 2032, with a 12% reduction achieved in 2023,” Curley highlighted.
Key industries of focus for Regal Rexnord include:
- food and beverage
- aerospace
- intralogistics
- HVAC
- alternative energy
- medical
- automation and robotics
- mining and metals
- agriculture and construction
- marine.
“We have aligned around vertical industries and applications in those industries,” said Curley, who detailed the industry trends that are driving investment.
Energy efficiency in motors and clutches is an obvious one, but Curley also identified keeping up with regulations, as changes in fuel sources affect turbomachinery. Electrification has been at the forefront of many industries for over a decade. “We’ve been doing electric brakes for a long time,” noted Curley. “We have equipment on 50% of the installed base of turbines.”
Some motion applications and customers have been late adopters of digitalization, explained Curley. “We’re seeing a lot more integration of the powertrain, integrating that data and those capabilities into a predictive-maintenance model,” he said. At Regal Rexnord, digital drives the exploration, integration and orchestration of various digital technologies and strategies to enhance and transform the business. These include cloud and data, generative artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, data analytics and Internet of Things (IoT). “It’s all about connecting the world,” emphasized Curley.
Including the completed acquisition of Altra Industrial Motion in March 2023, 60 brands now fall under Regal and Rexnord. “Our largest growing business is powertrain solutions, noted Curley. “We see them across all three of our businesses. A powertrain integrates the power source with all of the critical components. It converts power into motion. Regal Rexnord is highly focused on powertrain solutions to reduce our customer’s integration risk and engineering time.” This includes intelligent powertrains for smart factories. “We have a unified intelligent ecosystem and one platform to manage it,” Curley announced.
Louis Pinkham, CEO, joined Regal Rexnord in April 2019, focusing on operational excellence. “We talk about having three key stakeholders—our associates, our customers and our shareholders,” he explained. “Our 80/20 mindset is focusing on those highly valued customers and overserving them in the product divisions we have, but more importantly in the vertical market. No one has the scale and scope in go-to-market that Regal Rexnord does.”
Regal Rexnord’s automation and motion control (AMC) division includes conveying products, aerospace, seals and bearings, linear motion, precision motors, servo drives and controls and power management. About two-thirds of its sales are in the Americas, with 68% directly to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and system integrators and the other 32% through distributors. Factory automation is the largest market segment with nearly a third of the business, while aerospace and food and beverage each comprise 20%. Most of our businesses help to manage or control motion,” explained Kevin Zaba, president of the AMC division at Regal Rexnord. “We’re technology-biased as a segment, and we have deep domain expertise.”
Zaba highlighted a variety of AMC innovations:
- Aerospace—full rotation bearings, the design of which started from the legacy gearbox and expanded into the fixed-wing engine/auxiliary power unit (APU)
- Motion control systems—the Kollmorgen TBM2G frameless motor includes high torque density and energy efficiency for all speed and torque ranges. It’s used heavily in robotics applications and is installed on satellites.
- Linear motion—Electrak XD is an eco-friendly electric actuator replacement for pneumatic actuators. It’s designed to be lighter and more compact with greater torque and load capacity.
- Micro motion—2X shaver motor is a patented technology used for medical sterilization. It includes micro-precision powertrain and long life of 1,000+ autoclave cycles.
- Conveyance—pasteurizer chain has a longer life than steel, is easily cleanable and includes a modular plastic design.
- Power management—automatic transfer switch has extended range.
“When we first brought Regal and Rexnord together it was exciting, but, as we added the Altra products, we were able to enhance the overall set of offerings, but also from subsystems and powertrains that we’re able to build to meet the needs,” explained Zaba.
Jerry Morton, president, industrial powertrain solutions (IPS), has been in the space for 37 years. “When I started, we had two brands,” he mentioned. “Today, we have 41. It’s been a tremendous transformation. We brought together the three formidable players in the powertrain space.”
The organization’s biggest issue could also be its biggest opportunity. “Many of our customers see different brands and think they’re all different companies,” said Morton. “Ultimately, we’re trying to get to supplying the entire powertrain.”
IPS products include gearing, couplings, bearings, mechanical drives, clutches and brakes, with 67% of its business in North America. “You see all of those in industrial powertrains,” noted Morton. Industry verticals for IPS with the most focus include heavy industry, mining, metals, agriculture, food and beverage, commercial HVAC, renewable energy and oil and gas.
One Regal Rexnord offering that could aid in bringing individually branded products under one unified umbrella is Perceptiv, its cloud-based asset-reliability platform for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. It’s a single ecosystem for connectable equipment and brands, providing actionable insights and recommendations based on machine-health data and reliability-engineering experts to advise and improve maintenance practices, explained Morton.
