Your Challenges, Our Solutions
In 2010, there were 3 American workers to support every retiree. By 2030, that ratio will shrink to 2 workers for every retiree.1 Here’s why this is critically important to the Ohio businesses we proudly support—there are fewer quality people available. For example, a central Ohio manufacturer recently shared with us that they were short 80 people…per shift! This issue will only become a stronger challenge in the future. In light of this, the need for a responsive, creative, knowledgeable automation solutions provider is critically important.
Along with staffing concerns, today’s competitive environment has companies working harder every day to increase profitability while using fewer resources, often by finding ways to reduce spending. While that is one way to develop leaner operations, Voelker Controls has chosen a different approach. We believe this brings a greater return.
For over 40 years, we have worked to understand our customers’ world and their obstacles to profitability: labor turnover/shortages, downtime, end customers’ quality standards, 100% track & traceability and cash flow, to name a few. Our specialists in Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton work with you to learn your processes, research areas of concern and craft cost-effective, robust automation solutions. Our goal is to serve as co-investigators: asking questions, reviewing process flow and analyzing component performance. These steps isolate and identify the most effective means to improve throughput with safety and efficiency.
As well as the input of responsive account managers, our team includes full-time Application Engineers. They serve as your technical experts in their respective fields with decades of experience in the mechanical, pneumatic, robotic and machine vision worlds. Our goal is provide an experience for our customers that goes far beyond ordering from a website or a massive paper catalog. We want you to have strong peace of mind, so that your choice to partner with us will be the best way to optimize your processes. Once a solution is in place, we back it up with highly-responsive, personable customer service and knowledgeable technical support. We are with you every step of the way!
Voelker Controls has defined four core proficiencies which we bring to bear on your production world. Implementing improvements in these areas creates a holistic solution that routinely brings far greater returns of profitability. We provide industry-leading solutions through:


Pneumatics
We have found that one of the greatest energy uses in your production efforts is compressed air. When pneumatic valves and supporting components fail or work inefficiently, the costs are not only financial. Throughput challenges, downtime losses and high maintenance labor efforts all have significant impacts to your bottom line. Our customers have suffered expensive downtime and loss of production due to just one dramatic air loss that took costly time to track down.
For these critical reasons, we proudly provide and support Mac Valves, a proven industrial partner for decades. Every component on the valve is 100% inspected for quality, further adding value to their industry-leading design & durability. Because of their commitment to quality, the typical lifespan of a Mac Valve is 3-10 times that of traditional valves.
Voelker Controls provides on-site evaluations of businesses’ pneumatic processes to help identify air waste and components to replace. We retain knowledgeable, pneumatic technical advisors that can provide prompt, precise feedback to optimize your compressed air usage. Our team can generate a report for you that summarizes cost savings and ROI for proposed upgrades. As an added value, our industrial supply staff in Franklin, OH ensures that individual items or pre-assembled pneumatic configurations arrive at your door in a timely manner. Our inventory in Franklin, OH includes often-used pneumatic valves and accessories to keep your production efforts running smoothly. Your compressed air costs can be effectively managed, and we look forward to working together to save your company money while boosting safe, efficient throughput.


Motion/Robotics
Another key production concern, motion control, is addressed with a 2-pronged approach: actuation and robotics. In both fields, we have knowledgeable technical advisors that expertly propose the best automation solution for applications that require:


Machine Vision/ID Reading
Along with robotics advances, some of the most exciting automation innovation can be found in the realm of machine vision and barcode reading. Cognex has been the industry leader in this world for decades. They invest millions of dollars into research every year in order to remain on the forefront of technology. So this equips our creative, knowledgeable application engineers to offer a range of robust, effective tools that proactively address and measure quality concerns. Free on-site evaluations are provided by our engineers to test how vision or barcode reading tools can improve throughput accuracy and quality values without interrupting or slowing the pace of production. We have found that identifying quality concerns as early in the flow as possible saves costly rework, needless scrap and end-customer issues. As the old adage says, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!”


Support/Training
Voelker Controls partners with industry-leading products that have a proven track record of engineering support and responsive delivery. More importantly, we work constantly to attract & retain customer-driven, personable team members and highly-skilled application engineers. To meet your time-sensitive needs, we inventory a wide selection of automation components. For these reasons, our greatest strength lies in our multiple levels of support. We ensure that you have a number of avenues to access our highly-responsive team members for your automation needs.
Support comes in many forms:
- mechanical and structural design
- pneumatic valves and accessories
- motion control & collaborative robotics
- barcode ID reading & machine vision
- machine guarding
- work tables
- shop benches
- turnkey automation cells
- laser shielding
- rolling & lockable carts






- Rotary actuation
- Variable gripping travel and force
- Linear motion
- Repetitive pick-and-place
- Machine tending
- Palletizing and de-palletizing
- Line tracking
- Extend and retract







- prompt, detailed replies to order and quote inquiries
- learning your unique production processes
- providing multiple contacts for urgent automation needs
- comprehensive on-site reviews by technical experts
- timely automation support over the phone to quickly solve critical issues
- swift delivery of time-sensitive assemblies or components