Accenture has agreed to acquire Pollux, a provider of industrial robotics and automation solutions, to expand Accenture’s capabilities across consumer goods, pharmaceutical and automotive industries, Accenture reported on Monday.
The purchase will help Accenture’s customers make factories, plants and supply chains more productive, safe and sustainable. Pollux’s professionals will join Accenture’s Industry X group, which embeds intelligence in how clients run factories and plants, as well as design and engineer connected products and services.
“Automation and human + machine collaboration are digitally transforming manufacturing and supply chain operations to be more flexible, resilient, sustainable and safe, and to better meet ever-changing customer demands,” said Nigel Stacey, global lead for Accenture Industry X.
Pollux had delivered solutions to optimize manufacturing and logistics processes. The company has designed, engineered and deployed assembly lines that include robots, hardware and software. Pollux has also delivered visual analytics inspection solutions, autonomous mobile robots and robots as a service.
“Tangibly seeing these benefits in practice requires a true integration of information technology and operations technology, which is what Pollux will allow us to offer our manufacturing clients,” Stacey added.
With the purchase, Accenture has made its first acquisition of an industrial robotics solutions provider and will encompass Pollux’s operations in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada and the U.S.
The acquisition follows Accenture’s acquisition of Arca, an engineering services company with a focus on network operations and business services, in Nov. 2020. With the purchase, Accenture will gain 640 employees.
Arca has provided multidisciplinary services for network operations, including engineering, design, deployment and telecom infrastructure management. The company’s offerings are supported by an integrated platform that automates network monitoring, optimizes processes and predicts system anomalies.
Under the latter acquisition, Accenture will combine its SynOps platform with Arca’s services to transition operating models to new sources of growth. The purchase will advance Accenture’s footprint across engineering, design, deployment and operation of network services.