Following the initial announcement, in April 2018, of the merger between Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik (HBM) and Brüel & Kjær, HBM’s Senior Vice President of Product Management, Marketing and Strategy Thomas Lippok at HBM, provides an update on the latest developments.

“Since the beginning of the year, HBM and Brüel & Kjær Sound & Vibration have been merging their activities, step by step, to become one company‚ HBK – Hottinger, Brüel & Kjær. HBK will be established as a company brand, while the existing brands of HBM and Brüel & Kjær will continue to be used as product names in their established areas. One result from this, is visitors to industry events - where HBK is exhibiting - will see HBM, BKSV and the other brands, such as Prenscia and Discom jointly displayed.

Mr. Lippok continues with more details about rationale behind the merger: “Our customers’ future in testing and measuring is becoming ever more digitized, which means that data is generated faster, is becoming more varied and increasing in size. There is also the growing importance of software and simulation, as well as the digital networking of sensors and measurement systems. Our customers need solutions that enable them to gain useful insights and decision criteria from a vast complexity and volume of data. Optimal integration, management and detailed analysis of measured data are required, for instance, to accelerate product development or efficiently control and monitor machines and systems.

Another important aspect is that previously separate topics such as Noise, Vibration, Harshness and Durablity & Reliability are increasingly merging. Again, users expect combined solutions that enable them to obtain integrated measurement data from both domains.

Merging the solutions will, of course, be a bit of a challenge. However, our R&D departments have solved technical issues that were - in large part - identical in the product components, such as the communication with digital interfaces or the handling of huge data volumes. These will be our starting points for future solutions enabling us to leverage these synergies.

We will use a common HBK marketing approach for Automotive and Aerospace/Defense markets in the future. The first joint solution - interfacing HBM’s QuantumX modules with Brüel & Kjær’s BK Connect software for acquiring bus signals or measuring temperature - will be available soon.

For the future we will continue to develop the proven sensor technologies, with increasing focus on digitalization, as close as possible to the sensor. We are working on a common data acquisition platform, for the hardware and embedded software, to offer our customers a work environment that is as uniform as possible. The data-management and analysis software will work on the same platform, allowing users faster analysis from huge data volumes. We’re also aiming to provide a seamless connection between simulation and control systems, so it’s much easier to correlate them with real-world results.”