ABB Motion’s Drive Products has invested, through ABB Motion Ventures, in Virginia-based circular manufacturing company Molg to optimize manufacturing design and reusability of ABB drives.
In this partnership, ABB will use Molg’s design expertise and US-based robotic microfactories to streamline the assembly and testing processes within ABB’s manufacturing operations. A key facet of this collaboration will be ABB’s will use of Molg’s technologies and insights to increase its drives’ circularity and resource efficiency.
A central aspect of ABB Drive Products’ investment in Molg is the firm’s circularity credentials. In this announcement, ABB stressed its commitment to achieving a full life-cycle circular approach for?80% of its products by 2030. ABB expects work with Molg’s robotic microfactories to improve ABB’s efficiency of manufacturing of configured-to-order drives by further automating the drives’ assembly and testing processes.
According to ABB, this investment strengthens ABB’s position as a key enabler of circular economy by re-using, re-purposing and recycling components.
ABB and Molg’s relationship began in 2023 when the company was recognized as a winner of the ABB Accelerating Circularity Startup Challenge. This led to ABB Drive Products and Molg delivering a successful proof of concept in drives assembly in Molg’s robotics-based microfactories.
This partnership follows ABB’s recent $100 million campus project in New Berlin, Wis., and further enables its ‘local for local’ strategy — using locally-sourced materials for in-country manufacturing to service local customers.
