Cimac Fzco, specialists in control, instrumentation and automation and counting some of the region’s biggest names as its customers, has outlined plans to expand its business to take in more manufacturing, R&D and instrument calibration and testing.

The company also reports its business has been growing at the rate of 40 to 50 per cent each year, a success it attributes to the growing awareness of automation in the region.
The company started in Jebel Ali in 1996 as a branch office of Cimac UK with five people and today employs 150. It has also established associate offices in Germany, the UK and Australia and the Dubai operation has now become the central engineering and manufacturing base for Cimac worldwide.
In order to continue and stabilise this growth in the next few years, the company has launched a major expansion drive spread over the next 12 months. It has acquired a plot of 10,000 sq m at the Techno Park and plans to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing and engineering centre. The new facility will have a modern panel assembly and manufacturing unit which will manufacture control panels and motor control sectors. It will also have a unique staging area where all systems manufactured by the company will be tested and simulated for their full functionality before being shipped out to the client. There is a plan to have an instrument calibration and testing laboratory as well. The facility will also house a new research and development wing. The R&D centre will provide access to the latest software design tools to build conceptual models.
“Our commitment into the manufacturing sector comes with plans to set up a unique R&D facility that will consist of a variety of different robots fitted with Cimac’ s latest laser technology, bringing to Dubai, the ultimate in systems integration for numerous industrial applications,” according to a company spokesman.
The company has considerable experience with integration of laser technology with all major robot products. It now plans to open a ‘World Centre of Innovation and Technology’ in Techno Park, where the focus will be on education and training and R&D in the use of new technologies and designing for the future.
“The World Centre of Excellence and Innovation will bring the most advanced techniques in the use of robots, laser, mobile communication, global visualisation and other new generation technologies to solve problems, improve business performance and increase margins in the competitive industrial markets,” the spokesman says.
Cimac will extend its established links with the world’s leading universities, colleges and other technical bodies to design course content geared towards encompassing all the latest techniques, technologies and current practices to develop a ‘new generation of technical brilliance’
An important goal for the new centre will be to provide the opportunity to train UAE people. Cimac also plans to establish a new UAE technology and innovation qualification, which will only be awarded to those individuals or organisations that have made a major technological or innovation contribution.
Long-term plans also include manufacturing complete cells and distributing their UAE brands worldwide.
Today most of the equipment used in automation is microprocessor-based controllers, which can be programmed to do certain functionalities. These are devices such as PLC (programmable logic controllers), Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) Systems and DCS (distributed control systems).
Cimac usually undertakes automation work based on PLC systems, Scada systems, complete field instrumentation, low voltage motor control centres (LVMCCs) and medium voltage soft starters. For the oil and gas sector in addition to the above it does turnkey implementation of emergency shutdown systems (ESDs) and fire and gas systems (F&Gs). A Cimac project could have all of the above or part.
On a typical project the company starts from the concept design of the automation system, moves on to the detailed design and on to the procurement phase. This is followed by the manufacture and assembly stage where it manufactures the entire control system in its factory. This system is then fully tested internally as per relevant standards before it is offered to the client for testing called the Factory Acceptance Test, which helps him to know how his plant is going to react when the automation system becomes operational at its final destination. This is followed by the crucial phase of plant operation.
 “Cimac specialises not only in providing a control system to our clients but we emphasise on providing a total automation solution (TAS), which involves the complete design and implementation of their automation system,” the spokesman says.
Highlighting the benefits for a customer to come to a company like Cimac instead of going to an OEM, the spokesman says an OEM would have his focus on his hardware. How the platform can be used and optimised depends on the experience and knowledge of the company, which utilises it.  This the reason why many OEMs prefer to work with companies like Cimac who can support their hardware and software by developing bespoke applications for various clientele.
The company works for the main contractors or end-clients. Some of its clients in the region are Dubai Civil Aviation, Dewa, Tabreed, Dubal, Emirates Sky Cargo, Adwea and the oil companies in Abu Dhabi. Prestigious overseas clients include the Ministry of Public Works-Kuwait, Qatar Petroleum, Kuwait Oil Company, Occidental–Oman, General Motors in Australia and Ford Motor Co in the UK.