There are so many different ones that it can’t be the same company.
In: Engineering
Generally, no. They are not the same company. Each industry has other companies that support them. For specialized equipment, there are usually a few companies in any industry. For customized equipment, there will be system integrators or factory automation companies that will design and build equipment to specifications.
Even in this case, many sub components are bought off a catalog. So there are companies that make a variety of extrusions, motors, fasteners, drive systems, control systems etc. So the equipment designer translates specifications into a preliminary design and purchases various subcomponents to assemble (sort of like a very sophisticated LEGO).
Of course there are specializations. Some company might focus on food industry equipment, electronic manufacturing, heavy industry, metal forming, plastic molding etc. But you are right, it isn’t one company.
Not at all.
There are dozens of major companies and hundreds of smaller ones manufacturing a huge range of devices for different purposes and industries.
Each company tends to specialize in certain machines. So someone like AMADA tends to focus on sheet metal fabrication while another vendor might focus on making conveyors, presses, etc
And once the checks start getting big enough, every company is willing to bend over backwards to configure their machines to your exact specifications. If you need a machine 2x as big as they offer, they are willing to make you one for the right price.
There is an entire industry for making all sorts of automation equipment, companies big and large, must be tens of thousands of reasonably sized ones out there and many times more of tiny ones. From two men garage enterprises to some of the biggest companies in the world. Many manufacturing companies also make some of their own equipment instead of buying it all.
In many cases it’s not really that difficult, most of what you need you can accomplish by buying the rights parts and putting it together like sort of an industrial lego. What you really need to make it work is a team of engineers. You need to figure out the mechanics, the electrical part and the software. How big a team you need depends on timeframe and complexity of the machine, in some cases it can be one guy doing it all, or the other extreme you can have a gigantic global enterprise if you are doing something really big.
If you really want to see details maybe you can find some industrial fair or something. There are the big ones like Hannover Messe, that one has some 6000ish companies exhibiting their products, but I’m guessing most countries have something smaller scale locally.
This was my dad’s career until the early 2000’s when he retired. Some of the more popular ones was he landed a contract with McDonald’s and built the machine to automate the output of McNuggets. Fun fact, there are 4-shapes to them. We had unlimited McNuggets that year. Just kept them in our freezer. He also did McPizza which was a test they ran in the late 80’s.
The best one was one for brownies that filled an industrial size tray with batter, ran them on a conveyor through an oven, let them cool, cut them, and then popped them out for packing. That company sent us brownies for years.
As a kid, those were the cool ones. Mostly it was getting pills into blister packs (birth control as an example). Not as fun as McNuggets and brownies.
When I was a nurse going to med school I worked one night a week for a gentleman who had invented a few machines including one that made disposable diapers. He was incredibly wealthy and just had a small manufacturing shop in the next town.
Millwright contractor here. My job basically anything you have ever seen on ‘how it’s made’. I tend to specialize in big factory food equipment.
I install and make those machines. There are companies of all sizes making all sorts of factory equipment all over the world. I have build several specialized machines myself. Many are custom one off things. And there is a ton of customization of off the shelf machines. I make custom parts every week.
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