CTB, Inc., a Milford, Ind.-based designer, manufacturer and marketer of agricultural systems and solutions, announced plans to acquire CAT Squared, Conway, Ark., making it CTB’s first acquisition of a software provider. This purchase capitalizes on the synergy between CAT Squared’s manufacturing execution software for the food industry and CTB’s hardware and equipment brands such as Cabinplant, which designs and manufactures advanced equipment for difficult-to-handle convenience foods and food products such as seafood, fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry and dairy, and Meyn, which provides poultry processing solutions—from arrival systems to final packaging and shipment of food products.

"This new close relationship between CAT Squared and other CTB brands like Meyn and Cabinplant brings both short-term and long-term benefits," says Vernon Smith, chief executive officer of CAT Squared. "We expect our customers to see benefits as we integrate our market-leading hardware and software solutions. Our longer-term vision is to offer our customers a world-class MES system fully integrated with their plant floor hardware. These solutions will not only provide MES capabilities, but [also] make use of advanced planning, optimization and machine learning technologies CAT Squared has already brought to market with our TacticalOps Solution."

CAT Squared’s software modules provide access to real-time data collection on the plant floor, real-time reporting for production and inventory and full traceability for dry goods, ingredients, work-in-progress and final products. The multi-language software can be integrated with existing plant machines and ERP systems.

“CAT Squared’s product line supports CTB’s mission of providing a single source of supply to its processing industry customers,” says Victor Mancinelli, CTB’s chairman and CEO. “The software offers potential efficiency improvements for a wide variety of processing equipment, including processing markets new to CTB such as pork and beef.”

CAT Squared’s founding partners, Smith and Stephanus C.P. Schoeman, chief technology officer, will both continue in their present roles. Operations will remain in their existing facilities, where approximately 45 people are employed. 

“In discussions with our customers, we’ve emphasized the fact that this acquisition in no way impacts our working relationships,” says Smith. “The only change our customers will see is an increase in our resources and capabilities thanks to the backing provided by CTB’s investment.”