Robert Willett, the Cognex Corp. president and chief operating officer, has been promoted to chief executive officer, the company has announced. Willett will continue to report to Dr. Robert J. Shillman, who remains as the company’s chairman of the board and who has taken on the newly created role of chief culture officer. In his new role, Willett will be responsible for the company’s global finance and administration functions. In his most recent roles, he was responsible for sales, marketing, product development and operations for the company Modular Vision Systems Div. and Surface Inspection Systems Div. Cognex designs, develops, manufactures and markets a range of products that incorporate machine vision technology. Products include bar-code readers, and machine vision sensors and systems. For more information, visit: www.cognex.com