On the first day of the Association for Advancing Automation’s (A3) Automate Forward Virtual Trade Show & Conference, it announced that beginning on April 14, the Robotic Industries Association (RIA), AIA-Advancing Vision+Imaging, Motion Control & Motor Association (MCMA) and A3 Mexico will merge into one A3.
With the newly combined trade association will also come a launch of new website for A3, Automate.org, on April 14. The website will feature a host member and non-member content from the robotics, machine vision, AI, motion control and additive manufacturing industries.
With so many companies dipping their hands into the automation bucket, one association can serve as a single resource for more than 1,200 member companies.
“The commonalities between the goals of these associations have become clear,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. “As the industry changes, the association needs to change along with them to best serve them.”
A3 has long been the umbrella association for these individual trade organizations, but now that automation technologies are converging, it makes sense that the organizations that support these technologies converge as well.
“Now with the advance of technologies—microprocessor technologies, software technologies, the introduction of artificial intelligence—we’re reaching a point where all of these technologies are converging,” said John Payne, VP of the Motion Division at Yaskawa America and A3 board chair. “And it makes for a tremendous explosion of opportunities for all of us.”