Industrial X-Ray Modules

In 2016 a rise in the market's confidence led to a mild recovery in non-destructive testing, the core business of the IXM segment. In the previous year, the strong Swiss franc and lower oil prices had hurt business. Although major investments did not materialize in 2016, IXM prevailed with its strong offering and profited from orders customers had postponed in 2015 as a result of the market situation. With sales growth of 7.5% and a significant improvement of 4.8 percentage points in EBITDA margin, the segment had a positive year. The top growth driver was the non-destructive testing market, followed by the security sector. Gross margin improved thanks to various measures to boost operating efficiency as well as an overall increase in capacity utilization.

Successful through innovative, made-to-measure solutions

Leveraging its proven forward strategy, IXM realized growth with its range of complete modules, particularly for non-destructive testing, with the end-user markets within this application showing differential levels of performance. Positive trends were seen with the automotive and aerospace sectors. Consumers and companies were able to borrow at unusually low rates, leading to record sales of vehicles. In the aerospace industry, airlines took advantage of the lower interest rates to update and expand their fleets. Both trends added fuel to the demand for x-ray-based non-destructive testing. With innovative and customized products and its strong market position, COMET benefited disproportionately more than the competition. Business was more subdued in the energy sector with the core segments of oil and gas. As commodity prices picked up slightly but remained at low absolute levels, companies in industry areas such as pipelines refrained from large investments. By contrast, the security inspection business contributed strongly to IXM's growth, led by a major order from the USA; sales in China were stable.

Intelligent generators for Industry 4.0

With the completion of the new generation of the iVario™ family of generators, IXM marked an important milestone in its forward strategy and in the provision of an offering of complete modules with coordinated components. Designed for the first time specifically and entirely for the x-ray tube, the generator is extremely versatile, IoT-capable, easy to service and suitable for numerous applications. After very good results in field tests, the new generator platform is to be launched in 2017.

The first pilot project revolving around the IoT was driven forward, based on the platform for portable systems. Its results are also to be used in the development of customer applications by other COMET Group operating segments, which increasingly leverage data analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize applications.

Security sector becomes a growth driver

In the x-ray modules business, luggage inspection using more powerful technology represents an important growth opportunity for the future. Heightened social and geopolitical tensions are leading to significant investment in security solutions: Infrastructure “pressure points” such as train stations, shopping centers and airport entrances are increasingly being equipped with state-of-the-art security systems. Thus, priorities for IXM in 2017 in the security space are the expansion of the strategic collaboration with key accounts, the testing of new approaches and prototypes for the faster and more exact identification of substances and the further improvement of these solutions. The launch of the new iVario™ generators will create the product foundation for pronounced additional growth of the segment in the coming years.