Mequon, Wis.-Prospects for business growth on the inside appeared as bright as the late summer day outside on Sept. 8, when Rockwell Automation officially dedicated a 30% expansion of its 10-year-old Drives Business headquarters and R&D facility. The $40 million, 130,000-ft² building addition expands Rockwell's capabilities for design, development, and support of electronic drives, and is expected to accommodate its growth for five years.

Overall, the now-570,000-ft² drives center employs 1,000 people in activities that span manufacturing, system engineering, testing, and customer training/support for industrial drives. New product development labs were emphasized in the expansion. These include laboratories for component analysis, dynamometer testing, communication products, software, test engineering, quality engineering, and technical training. The dynamometers are housed in self-contained bays. The drives center also does EMC testing and power module prototyping.