Get Ahead of Motion Control Problems with FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer

Designing motion systems always involves trade-offs: performance, size, cost, and compatibility. You weigh one against the other, hoping the decisions you make at the front end hold up once the system is live. But as any engineer who’s had to re-spec a drive after installation knows, small miscalculations at the beginning can lead to big setbacks later on.

We’ve seen it happen: a motor runs hotter than expected, a drive isn’t rated for the full duty cycle, or the margin between inrush current and trip limit isn’t enough to survive a spike. These aren’t edge cases. They are real issues that crop up when design assumptions go unchecked.

FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer helps you avoid those problems. It gives engineers the ability to model, test, and validate motion designs before hardware is purchased or panels are built. That means better decisions, better documentation, and far less scrambling during startup.

A Design Tool That Answers the Right Questions

FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer isn’t a generic simulator. It’s focused on a single purpose: helping you build motion systems that work the way you expect them to.

You start by entering your system parameters: mechanical load, move profile, transmission details, and environment. The tool then calculates performance requirements and recommends Rockwell motors, drives, and actuators that match. It pulls from a built-in database of current products and applies engineering logic to determine which combinations will deliver the performance you need.

This doesn’t just speed up selection. It reduces the risk of oversizing, undersizing, or selecting incompatible components. That’s where the real value lies.

Core Features

For engineers designing with Kinetix, PowerFlex, or other Rockwell motion platforms, Motion Analyzer gives you:

• Digital load modeling: Build a system that reflects real-world inertia, friction, and load behavior. Whether you're working with conveyors, gantries, or indexing machines, the tool accounts for how the mechanics affect the motor.
• Drive and motor sizing: Select appropriate hardware based on duty cycle, torque, speed, and thermal capacity. The software flags underperforming components and allows side-by-side comparisons of multiple drive-motor pairings.
• Thermal analysis: Understand how your system will behave over time, not just at startup. You’ll see whether a motor is likely to overheat under continuous load or whether your duty cycle needs to change.
• Torque-speed and RMS current curves: Validate performance visually with plots that highlight where your system’s operating points fall within the component’s capabilities.
• Optimization tools: Adjust for cost, footprint, or energy efficiency and compare outcomes before making your final decision.
• Report generation: Export a clear, organized document summarizing all major system decisions, from component specs to calculated performance. Ideal for reviews, approvals, or customer handoffs.

When multiple engineers are involved, FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer gives everyone the same data set, so the decisions made early in the process hold up through handoff and installation.

Useful on New Designs, Indispensable for Upgrades

We see Motion Analyzer used effectively on both ends of the project spectrum.

For new builds, it speeds up system development and ensures compatibility from day one. When design cycles are tight or multiple engineering disciplines are collaborating, having a shared source of truth around component sizing prevents costly misalignment.

For retrofit projects, where constraints are tighter and legacy equipment may need to stay in play, the tool is even more valuable. You can quickly check whether an existing drive can support a new load or whether swapping a motor requires rebalancing the entire system. It helps teams make informed decisions with minimal guesswork, especially when facility downtime is limited.

Built for Rockwell, Built for You

If you’re designing with Rockwell motion products, this tool already matches the way you work. It supports a wide range of current hardware–from PowerFlex 520-series drives to Kinetix 5700 and ArmorKinetix distributed servo systems–and it continues to evolve alongside Rockwell’s product catalog.

We often hear from customers that they didn’t realize how many system variables they could account for before they started using this tool. Once they do, it becomes a standard part of the design process, not because it’s required, but because it works.

What We’ve Seen at HESCO

Over the years, we’ve helped engineers build hundreds of motion systems, some simple, others highly complex. In nearly every case where FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer was used early, the process moved faster and ran smoothly. In cases where it wasn’t, surprises cropped up more often than not.

That’s not because people made mistakes. It’s because modern motion systems are too complex to design by hand. Without a tool like this, even experienced teams end up relying on best guesses.

At HESCO, our goal is to help you build systems that perform reliably under real-world conditions. We don’t push tools or products you don’t need. But we do recommend resources that make your work more efficient, your choices more defensible, and your systems more robust. Motion Analyzer is one of those tools.

Let’s Walk Through It Together

You don’t need to be an expert to get value from this software. And you don’t have to go it alone.

If you’re in the early stages of a motion project or if you’re running into performance issues on an existing line, we can help. We’ll walk through the system requirements, build a model, and show you exactly what your options look like, with performance and cost details side by side.

This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a process check, and one we’ve done hundreds of times. It usually pays for itself in the time it saves and the problems it helps you avoid.

Want to get started with FactoryTalk Motion Analyzer? Contact HESCO today. We’ll help you model your system, size your components, and move forward with confidence.