ATS Automation Tooling Systems is a Canadian company based in

Cambridge, Ontario Cambridge is a city in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, located at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers. The city had a population of 138,479 as of the 2021 census. Along with Kitchener and Waterloo, Cambridg ...

, that designs and builds

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

systems. It is listed on the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the ...

History

ATS was founded by

Klaus Woerner Klaus Woerner (1939–2005) was the founder and CEO of ATS Automation Tooling Systems. Its main headquarters is located in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada and it is one of the world's foremost companies dealing with automated manufacturing equipment. ...

in 1978. Woerner, who immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1974, ran the company until his death in 2005, overseeing significant growth. In 2007, ATS pulled the planned IPO of its solar division, Photowatt. Partially as a result of this, two hedge funds, Goodwood and Mason Capital Management, led a

proxy fight A proxy fight, proxy contest or proxy battle (sometimes even called a proxy war) is an unfriendly contest for the control over an organization. The event usually occurs when a corporation's stockholders develop opposition to some aspect of the corp ...

against the firm, leading to the a new board of directors and management team. Anthony Caputo became CEO at this time. Photowatt under-performed significantly in the years that followed; the company eventually sold Photowatt's French operations to

EDF Group EDF may refer to: Organisations * Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association * Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity * Électricité de France, a French energy company ** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary ** EDF Luminus, ...

. In 2011, ATS purchased Sortimat Group, a German life sciences automation firm, for $62 million. In 2013, they purchased German packaging firm IWK for $144 million, and in 2014, they purchased the automation business of German company M+W Group for $362 million. In February 2017, Andrew Hider was appointed CEO of the company.

Operations

ATS builds automation systems for the medical devices, pharmaceuticals,

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

, fiber optics, automotive, computers, solar energy and

consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...

products industries. As of 2018, they have designed and built 23,000 automation systems. ATS employs approximately 4200 people worldwide, with 20 facilities in North America, Europe and Asia.

References

External links

* {{Canada-company-stub Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Manufacturing companies based in Ontario Manufacturing companies of Canada Companies based in Cambridge, Ontario Equipment semiconductor companies MES software