Vishay Precision Group, Inc. (‘VPG’) operates as a global company in precision measurement and sensing technologies.
The company helps power the future by bridging the physical world with the digital one. Many of the company's specialized sensors, weighing solutions, and measurement systems are designed-in by its customers, and address growing applications across a diverse array of industries and markets.
VPG’s products are often at the first stage of a data value chain (i.e., the process of c...
Vishay Precision Group, Inc. (‘VPG’) operates as a global company in precision measurement and sensing technologies.
The company helps power the future by bridging the physical world with the digital one. Many of the company's specialized sensors, weighing solutions, and measurement systems are designed-in by its customers, and address growing applications across a diverse array of industries and markets.
VPG’s products are often at the first stage of a data value chain (i.e., the process of converting the physical world into a digital format that can be used for a specific purpose), and as such, impact the effectiveness of a vast number of critical, high-value downstream processes. Over the past few years, it has seen a broadening of precision sensing applications in both its traditional industrial markets and new markets, due to the development of higher functionality in its customers' end products. The company's precision measurement solutions are used across a wide variety of end markets upon which it focuses, including test and measurement, industrial, transportation, steel, avionics, military and space, as well as other markets, such as agriculture, consumer, and medical.
Strategies
VPG delivers in-depth, deep engineering expertise to the design and manufacture of non-commodity sensors, weighing solutions, and precision measurement systems that optimize and enhance the company's solutions performance across a broad array of end markets.
The company's strategy is to leverage its core technologies and competitive position in both existing and new markets to accelerate its organic growth, as well as to augment that growth by acquiring complementary precision measurement and sensing businesses. Specifically, it is focused on the following strategies: optimize core competence, organic growth, and growth from acquisitions.
Leverage Global Brand
The VPG brand leverages the strength of these historical brands under the umbrella of a unified, globally recognizable VPG name. The company continues to broaden and emphasize the VPG brand in the markets it serves under the following brands for each of its business segments:
Sensors: VPG Foil Resistors, VFR, Alpha Electronics, Powertron, APR, and Micro-Measurements.
Weighing Solutions: VPG Transducers, Celtron, Revere, Sensortronics, Tedea-Huntleigh, VPG Onboard Weighing, Stress-Tek, Vulcan, and BLH Nobel.
Measurement Systems: KELK, Dynamic Systems Inc. or Gleeble, DTS, Pacific Instruments, and Nokra.
Business Segments and Products
VPG reports in three product segments: Sensors, Weighing Solutions, and Measurement Systems.
Sensors
The Sensors segment consists of the company's precision resistor and strain gage businesses. Precision resistor products offer superior precision, stability, and reliability. The company's resistor portfolio encompasses a wide variety of configurations and packages designed to meet the requirements of even the most demanding applications.
Precision resistors are the most precise and stable type of resistors currently available. Resistors are basic components used in all forms of electronic circuitry to adjust and regulate levels of voltage and current. The company's current sense resistors were developed with a low absolute TCR and Kelvin connections to meet the demand for stable resistive products.
The company's precision resistors are based on Bulk Metal Foil technology and are used in diverse applications, which require a high degree of precision and stability. The main market segments for its precision resistors are as follows: avionics & military, space communications, fiber optics, industrial automation, EV battery management infrastructure, precision weighing, and test & measurement, including semiconductor test and production, among others. Foil resistors are marketed under four different brands: VFR, Alpha Electronics, Powertron, and APR. APR is the company’s off-the-shelf commercial product line based on AEC-Q200 standardization. To complement its extensive portfolio of high-performance precision resistors, the company also offers decade boxes, standard resistors, exceptional precision thin film and power resistors, including special construction configurations to meet the requirements of high-temperature applications. It has a roadmap of new technology products to meet the required needs of its customers.
The company's strain gage products, which include its advanced sensors, are resistive sensors that are attached to the surface of an object to determine the surface strain caused by an applied force. Marketed under the well-known Micro-Measurements brand, its strain gages are used for OEM and in stress analysis applications for structural testing in the aviation, military and space, infrastructure, and construction markets, along with force measurement and weighing markets. Typical applications of strain gages include test and measurement applications where the strength of the object is the main consideration and the object under test is a structural component in a machine or device, such as an automobile, an aircraft, or a highway bridge. Strain gages are also used inside precision transducers where the magnitude of an applied force is the focus of the measurement. The company's innovative advanced sensors product line enhances the capability and performance of its strain gages, while simultaneously reducing their size and power consumption. Emerging applications for its advanced sensors include industrial and medical robotics, as well as for consumer products.
A portion of the company’s strain gage products are sold to third parties as standard catalog items, while the remainder of these products are sold as non-standard and/or custom products to third parties and to its Weighing Solutions segment. Strain gage products are sold across several of its market sectors, with a significant portion being sold to consumer end markets.
The products in the Sensors segment are primarily based on the company's resistive foil technology, which continues to evolve and enables many products in both segments to be suited for new and varied applications.
The manufacturing of the foil material is a critical and common component of the company's strain gage and precision foil resistor operating segments, and as a result, it experiences synergies between its precision resistor and strain gage operating segments. The production cycles for precision resistors and strain gages are similar and many of the same raw materials are utilized in the manufacturing processes for both operating segments. The foil resistor and strain gage products require a similar level of labor and capital. However, the advanced sensors’ manufacturing technology offers the company the capability to produce high-quality foil strain gages in a highly automated environment.
Weighing Solutions
The Weighing Solutions segment consists of the company's VPG Transducers, VPG Onboard Weighing, BLH Nobel, Stress-Tek, and Vulcan businesses.
VPG Transducers offers a broad line of load cells and force measurement transducers, which are also known as force sensors, that are offered as precision sensors for industrial and commercial use. Typical applications for force sensors are in construction machinery for stability control or overload protection, agricultural equipment for precision force measurement, and medical devices, such as hospital beds and medication dosing. The heavy equipment market has begun to adopt load cell technology as process control and equipment control features for their products. In some cases, these products use the company's strain gage products, which serve as sensing elements and components within each unit. Further integration of its load cell technology is also offered as part of its weighing module products, which provide customers with a complete sensor assembly.
A transducer is mounted on a structure that is subjected to weight or other forces, such as the platform of an industrial scale. The term load cell is primarily used to describe transducers used in weighing applications. Strain-gage based transducers consist of one or more strain gages bonded to a metallic structure. The change in resistance of the strain gages in response to strain of the transducer by the applied load is detected by electronic instrumentation calculating the force detected or weight. Transducers are manufactured with different designs and configurations depending on their application and the type of stress or strain to be measured; for example, weight or tension. The company produces both analog and digital transducers. Modules are transducers combined with a mounting and with external features, such as instruments and cables, and are used for weighing and control applications. It sells its load cells and modules under the overall VPG Transducers name as it continues to transition from the previously used Celtron, Revere, Sensortronics, and Tedea-Huntleigh brands.
Approximately half of VPG Transducer load cell products are sold to third parties as standard catalog items, but a growing sector of this segment’s products are sold as non-standard and/or custom products to third parties, including OEM manufacturers. The company's sales teams act as direct sales channels (field application engineers or FAEs) utilizing the primary customer interface relating to initial design specifications, development of prototypes, and pricing/delivery of this segment’s products. Distributors are also used for those customers that desire standard products.
The company's VPG Onboard Weighing, Stress-Tek, and Vulcan businesses specialize in high-quality, high-accuracy vehicle weighing and overload monitoring systems for all commercial vehicle types, including trucks, vans, specialty vehicles, and special scale systems used for aircraft weighing and portable truck weighing. Onboard weighing systems are installed in logging and waste handling trucks. Many of these products use solid-state sensors. VPG Onboard Weighing products, sold under the brand names TruckWeigh, VanWeigh, and Load Pro in the United States, are used by drivers and fleet operators to monitor vehicle loads within legally permitted limits and regulations.
The BLH Nobel business mainly provides load cells and instrumentation for weighing and force control/measurement for a variety of uses. These include systems to control process weighing in food, chemical, and pharmaceutical plants; force measurement systems used to control web tension in paper mills, cable tension in winch controls.
Major components that comprise its Weighing Solutions products include load cells, electronic displays, signal processors, MEMS sensors, cabling, system software, and communications software/hardware. The end use for the majority of these products is the precision measurement of force, weight, pressure, torque, tilt, motion, and acceleration. FAEs are utilized as the primary customer interface relating to initial design specifications, development of prototypes, and pricing/delivery of this segment's products. The company also uses distributors and sales agents, as appropriate, to market, sell, and support certain products in this segment.
Measurement Systems
The Measurement Systems segment includes highly specialized systems for steel production, materials development, and safety testing. This segment consists of the company's KELK, Nokra, DSI, Pacific Instruments, and DTS businesses.
The company's KELK business provides high accuracy and performance sensors and systems for the steel and aluminum industries, and within those industries, mainly for rolling mills. KELK's products include rolling force measuring load cell systems and pressure transmitters; web tension measurement load cells and systems; optical strip width gages; laser velocimeters for speed and length measurements, and closed-loop crop optimization control systems for optimal strip cuts. The company's products are required to meet the most demanding requirements of the steel and aluminum industries, providing high accuracy and reliability under the most demanding harsh conditions of rolling mills.
The company's Nokra business offers high-quality measurement and testing systems for use in manufacturing. The systems measure and test geometric features, such as length, width, thickness, profile, shape, and position. Nokra’s laser-based measuring systems expand upon the company's existing KELK measurement and inspection solutions for steel and aluminum rolling mills, as well as for the metal processing industry around the world.
The company's DSI business specializes in thermal-mechanical simulation systems for metallurgical research. Marketed under the name Gleeble, DSI's line of physical simulation systems are used by universities, research departments, and development departments within the steel ecosystem to accelerate the development of new metal alloys, explore new production techniques, optimize existing processes, or simulate the conditions a material will face in the real world.
The company's Pacific Instruments business offers a broad range of high-performance signal conditioning, data acquisition, and control systems, many of which reach customers outside its traditional commercial customer base, such as U.S. government-related customers.
The company's DTS business provides data acquisition systems and sensors for product safety testing. As a major supplier of embedded data acquisition and data logging capabilities for crash test dummies, DTS expands its offering in the automotive market and in the avionics, military, and space market.
Qualifications and Specifications
Certain of the company's products must be qualified or approved under various military and aerospace specifications and other standards.
The company has qualified certain of its foil resistor and sensor products under various military specifications approved and monitored by the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), under certain European military specifications, and various aerospace standards approved by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Qualification and specification levels are based in part upon the rate of failure of products. The company must continuously perform tests on its products, and report the results for qualified products to the qualifying organization.
Certain of the company’s load cell and instrumentation products are approved by the National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP) and International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML). Many of its weighing systems must also meet these standards to make them usable for legal-for-trade weighing applications. Products and systems that are to be used in hazardous areas, where explosive atmospheres might exist, must comply with special safety standards, such as the European Atmosphère Explosible (ATEX) Standard and the U.S. Factory Mutual (FM) Standard. The company's load cell manufacturing sites undergo periodic audits by regulatory authorities in order to verify compliance with standard requirements and to extend product approvals.
Manufacturing Operations
The company's principal manufacturing facilities are located in Israel, the United States, Canada, India, Germany, and Japan. It also has manufacturing facilities in Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and France.
The company has quality management systems at all of its major manufacturing facilities approved under the ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems Standard. ISO 9001 is a comprehensive set of quality program standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
The quality management system in the company's major foil resistors manufacturing site is certified against Aerospace Standard AS 9100.
The company's third-party major load cells manufacturer as well as its third-party Onboard Weighing manufacturer have quality management systems certified to Automotive Standard IATF 16949.
The company's DTS business unit, manufacturing data acquisition systems, data loggers, and sensors for critical testing for aerospace, military, and crash safety, is certified to ISO/IEC 17025 standard. Compliance with this standard ensures that the DTS facilities operate quality management systems, are technically competent, and generate technically valid results.
Customers and Marketing
The company's customer base is diversified in terms of industry, geographic region, and range of product needs. A portion of its products are used in the broad industrial market for a wide variety of applications in waste management, bulk hauling, logging, scales manufacturing, engineering systems, pharmaceutical, oil, chemical, steel, paper, and food industries. In addition, it sells to an expanding array of end markets, including test and measurement, steel, medical, construction, agricultural, and consumer.
Many of the company's products have historically been sold by dedicated sales forces, consisting mainly of FAEs focusing on specific market segments or specific customers. The FAEs help identify the products in the company's portfolio that best meet the needs of its customers and provide technical and applications support. Their in-depth knowledge of customer needs is a key factor in new product design and future research and development initiatives.
Competition
Examples of competition in the company's Sensors segment include KOA, Bourns, Vishay Intertechnology, TT Electronics, Susumu, Isabellenhute, Caddock, and Flat Dashi for foil resistors and HBK, an operating company of Spectris, Tokyo Sokki Kenkyujo Co., Ltd (TML), Kyowa, and Zemic for strain gages.
Competitors in the company's Weighing Solutions segment include HBK, Zemic, and Utilcell for load cell products, Air-Weigh, and Vehicle Weighing Systems for onboard weighing products.
In the Measurement Systems segment, the company competes with ABB, IMS, and Fuji in the steel market and Kistler for data acquisition systems.
Research and Development
The amount charged to expense for the company's research and development was $20.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2024.
History
Vishay Precision Group, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in 2009.
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