At the end of 2024, the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) reached another milestone in its membership development and now counts 8,000 members with the addition of Randolph, New Jersey-based Norwalt Automation Group.
Norwalt joins the ETG as another machine builder that wants to provide EtherCAT technology to its customers. Just like the ETG itself, Kyle Seitel, technical operations manager at Norwalt, is pleased about joining.
“Without EtherCAT, our new machine would not be nearly as successful,” Seitel said. “The performance and synchronization precision of EtherCAT enable the outstanding accuracy and high throughput of this system with its many axes. In this way, EtherCAT helps us meet the high expectations of our customers and will continue to do so in the future.”
Hitting this 8,000-member milestone, in combination with the approximately 80 million EtherCAT nodes in the field, confirms the membership growth of the EtherCAT Technology Group for more than 20 years after its foundation, with more than 400 new members joining every year for the past 10 years.
Although EtherCAT originated in Germany, the structure of the ETG is global. The number of Asian member companies has recently overtaken those from Europe. This means that 43% of members come from Asia, 42% from Europe, 14% from North America and 1% from the rest of the world. According to the organization's guidelines, only legal entities such as companies or universities can become members of the ETG, not individuals.
