A World of Automation

Rockwell Automation celebrated Automation Fair’s eighth anniversary

Over the years, Automation Fair has grown from strength-to-strength and this year’s event, held from October 24 to 26, once again provided a comprehensive industry platform for customers, journalists and manufacturing professionals to learn about the latest in automation technology. The now familiar formula of trade show, hands-on labs, technical sessions and industry forums offered participants the ideal opportunity to find solutions in their various fields of automation and control.

Opening Perspectives

Manufacturing Perspectives, a full-day annual media forum kicked off the three-day event at the Baltimore Convention Center. The event brought together over 70 editors from 22 countries. Attendees heard from global executives, manufacturing experts and Rockwell Automation customers, who convened to share their perspectives on industry trends and issues of the day.

Keith Nosbusch, Chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation, and recipient of the 2006 North American CEO Lifetime Achievement Award in the Industrial Automation & Process Control Space from Frost and Sullivan, opened the proceedings on a positive note when he reported company sales up 11 percent to US$5.5 billion for FY2006.

He also set out clear goals to position Rockwell Automation in close proximity to customers, for non- US sales to reach greater than 50 percent by 2009, and the moving of a greater proportion of operations offshore.

Giving an overview of manufacturing technology, Nosbusch said that supply chain integration and flexible manufacturing are driving factory and enterprise systems to become one collaborative environment. He underlined Rockwell Automation’s solutions to meet the requirements at various levels of manufacturing including information control, control systems, and machines and processes.

Jamie Estrada, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing at the US Department of Commerce, followed up with the local perspective on how US manufacturers can remain competitive in the international market. His message was clear: despite all the negative predictions for US manufacturing, the country remains the world’s largest exporter of goods, and its greater efficiency, competitiveness and innovation has actually been helped by international competition. Compared to five years ago, workers’ productivity has increased 18 percent and is growing at 3.7 percent in 2006.

Providing an Asian perspective on global trends in manufacturing was Ko Kheng Hwa, Managing Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board. According to Ko, there is a tectonic shift happening, in intra-regional and global manufacturing within North America and Europe, and from both these continents to Asia. However, the US continues to lead in hi-tech manufacturing – it increased market share from 25 to 40 percent from 1990 to 2003.

In Asia itself, he said, China’s FDI growth is moderating while India is rising as a manufacturing hub. And Southeast Asia is well positioned between these two countries with manufacturing investment continuing to flow into the region. Multinational companies (MNCs) are changing their strategies in Asia by distributing their manufacturing activities in order to capture competitive advantages and diversify risk.

They have also started to anchor their whole value chain across Asia. Other than production, this includes R&D, innovation, supply chain management and global management. The main reasons for this, said Ko, is the abundance of talent in the region, getting proximity to the market and achieving supply chain efficiencies.

During the question and answer session, the panel of speakers agreed that manufacturing is highly distributed and needs to be networked across geographies. The key enabler for this is information technology (IT). Another key point of discussion is the “war for talent”. Everyone agreed that the development of talent is crucial for a company’s success and that there is a need to attract talent globally.

Looking into the crystal ball, the response was varied when it came to the question of the key factor that will have the greatest impact on manufacturing. Sustainability, continuous improvement to drive productivity and innovation, attracting the best educated workforce, and further liberalization of free trade were all put up as factors of priority.

Manufacturing Perspectives continued with further presentations and discussions with speakers from large multinationals such as IBM and Cisco Systems, giving their expert opinion and views on topics and case studies that covered the connected enterprise, manufacturing execution systems and distributed architecture. All in all, the event was highly educational and provided a deep insight into the problems and issues that manufacturers face and the solutions needed to overcome them.

Process & Discrete: The Gap Closes

Understanding how to bridge the gap between process and discrete automation applications was a key highlight at Automation Fair this year. Besides showcasing four new product features that enhance integration, Rockwell Automation also discussed its partnership with Endress+Hauser, one of the world’s leading suppliers of process instruments, and unveiled migration plans for legacy DCS systems.

standardsbased measurement, automation and information solutions, leveraging control and information solutions from Rockwell Automation and process instruments from Endress+Hauser.

“Eighty percent of plants have both process and discrete functions; however, the majority of manufacturers rely on different control platforms for different functions throughout the controls environment,” said Kevin Zaba, Process Business Manager, Rockwell Automation.

“By using a common control platform for both process and discrete applications, manufacturers are able to significantly increase productivity, reduce costs and improve ease of use across the plant floor.”

Process solutions, which were featured in the Integrated Architecture booth on the show floor, showcased the overall system capabilities from Rockwell Automation, Ko Kheng Hwa, Managing Director, Singapore Economic Development Board, providing an Asian perspective on global manufacturing trends. batch tools, safety systems, advanced process control capabilities and migration solutions for legacy PLCs and DCS systems.

Advances In Integration

Rockwell Automation also unveiled the expansion of its Integrated Architecture production control and information system at the show. This includes significant additions to the Logix Control Platform and FactoryTalk integrated production and performance suite. The additional functionality further aides real-time information exchange between production and the rest of the enterprise. The Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture integrates discrete, motion, batch, process, safety, drives and information disciplines on a single platform.

“Our customers are looking for an automation architecture that not only improves productivity and supply chain performance, but one that simplifies programming, commissioning and maintenance,” said Steve Eisenbrown, Senior Vice President, Rockwell Automation.

“We’ve embraced these demands, providing a level of integration, functionality and range of scalability that is unique to Integrated Architecture.”

Strategic Safety

In order to maximize manufacturing effectiveness, safety control can no longer be treated as a stand-alone or add-on application; it has to be integrated with the overall machine control strategy. This was the message conveyed to participants at the Rockwell Automation Safety Pavilion, which showcased a broad portfolio of safety products and solutions – from simple relays and sensors to fully integrated control systems – designed to help manufacturers shape their safety solutions to support both production and safety goals.

“We have to look at safety from an overall architectural standpoint,” said Kelly Schachenman, Manager of Marketing, Safety Systems, Rockwell Automation. “It is important to deliver a common solution architecture that integrates all the control systems, including safety with common tools and training to minimize deployment time and lower overall cost of ownership.”

“Safety is not a one-size-fits-all proposition,” said Lyle Masimore, Safety Business Manager, Rockwell Automation. “You need to understand your own unique requirements and have a costeffective solution that is right for your own needs. Rockwell Automation can help manufacturers implement safety in a way that can improve the productivity of their operations.”

Tackling The Verticals

Complementing the trade show, special industry tracks allowed participants to explore the latest trends and solutions in various vertical industries. This included Food and Beverage, Life Sciences, Marine, Oil and Gas, and Water/Wastewater.

Overall, these industry forums showed manufacturers how to use automation and information to improve manufacturing flexibility, reduce waste, manage information and eliminate inefficiencies. Visitors heard real examples of how manufacturers are teaming up with global vendors to become more competitive in their field of automation.

These industry sessions, together with the many other offerings on show in Baltimore this year, showed that Automation Fair has proven once again to be an important industry platform for participants to learn and develop skills necessary to become better professionals. Its line-up of automation solutions and education forums was more impressive than ever before, and this looks set to continue in the future. Rockwell Automation has certainly made this show into a must-not-miss event in the automation calendar.

‘We Have Almost Doubled Our Revenue’ During Automation Fair, Scott Summerville, President, Rockwell Automation Asia Pacific, took some time out to talk to CE Asia about the company’s recent performance and future prospects. CE Asia: Taking overall responsibility for Rockwell’s commercial and sales operations in the region from June 2003, what are some of the major changes you have made to the organization? Summerville: We have grown the organization significantly. When we first started, we had around 1,000 employees and now we have 2,000; so we have doubled the workforce. And we have almost doubled our revenue. When I first took over this position, we had about US$250 million in orders, now we have close to half a billion in sales. For major changes, we have developed a regional vertical focus that we did not have before. I think it’s a big competitive advantage for us because it gives us the ability in certain verticals, be it automotive or food & beverage, to work with large multinational companies and help coordinate their deployment of manufacturing across multiple geographies We’ve worked with a number of companies who had put in plants in China and India. And we’ve worked with major food companies that are deploying MES in multiple geographies like the Philippines, Japan and other locations. In planning, having a team with a bigger regional focus allows us to collaborate across geographies much better. So that was one of the big enhancements to our organization that I put in place. Another thing is that we have made our organization much more focused on people, through training, development, and performance management. Examples of this include implementing a leadership institute and management fundamentals program, and in 2002 when I was in China, we introduced a sales training program to bring in fresh new university graduates. So we have got a much bigger focus on people than we did, and that is a perk in terms of building the organizational capacity. CE Asia: Did things turn out as anticipated; the major successes; some of the difficulties encountered? Summerville: I would say that the way things have turned out has exceeded my expectations in terms of the sales growth, and the growth and capability of the organization. In terms of major successes, I would say it would be our penetration of some of the key verticals. We are starting to do more in the process automation space which is very gratifying. We have had some good success in what we call the complex OEM space where companies are using packaging machines, de-burring machines, blow molding or filling machines, and they need some integrated motion capabilities. We are doing much better in automotive than in 2003. In China, India and Southeast Asia, our penetration of the food market has been much stronger. I think we are going to see good penetration in the oil and gas market over the next couple of years. One of our biggest challenges is to continue to get high quality people into the organization, and also channel partners such as distributors – making sure that they are very good partners and extensions of our family. They must have good business acumen and a “growth mentality”. We cannot afford to partner with distributors that are not growth orientated. I would say channel development is one of our key challenges and we have been responding well there. CE Asia: How are the rest of the Asia Pacific markets doing outside of China? Summerville: Actually, we have got four geographies in this past year that did really well: India, China and Southeast Asia – these three geographies returned about 20 percent year-on-year growth; and in Australia we had about 10-15 percent growth, which for a mature market is pretty good. Where we did not have the growth that we were looking for was in the other geographies – Korea, Japan and New Zealand and to some extent, Taiwan. Those were areas that we underperformed expectations. We suffered a little bit in the automotive market, which is a big portion of our business in Japan. CE Asia: What are some of the growth initiatives for Rockwell Asia Pacific? Summerville: We want to become a bigger player in the process market, specifically in the hybrid-process batch space – food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals and so on. That is going to be a big thing for us. We have hired some good people from process automation companies to help us do this. We have established a process competency center in Singapore that will draw resources from various locations within the company. Our oil and gas industry solutions manager is based in Singapore and he has a power energy management specialist that works for him, so we expect to do quite well in that area of energy management and the oil and gas sector. So just process in general is an area where we expect to see some significant growth. The other growth initiative is expansion in the OEM space using our CompactLogix product, which was recently introduced in Asia. This will give OEMs integrated motion functionality more in the medium to mid-range rather than high-end that is more price-sensitive. We are going to be aggressively promoting that solution set to OEMs in Asia. CE Asia: So is process automation outpacing the other market sectors in terms of growth? Summerville: I don’t know from a market perspective if it is growing faster than discrete – we are obviously going to continue to be a world leader in discrete automation – but I see process automation as being a great opportunity for us to grow because it expands our available market. And I think we have got a very good solution set for this space with our batch software and the ability of ControlLogix to do process and discrete applications in the same platform. CE Asia: What is the outlook for Industrial Automation sector in Asia Pacific for the next five years? Summerville: Well, I think it’s certainly going to be strong. The reason is that you have got two huge emerging markets that are still developing quite rapidly – China and India. I think what you see now is India accelerating and gaining on China although it’s going to be quite some time before they catch China, if they do at all. Based on demographics, GDP growth in India could even exceed that of China by the end of this decade – India has a lot of young workers while China has got an aging population. But still, I think you are going to see continued rapid development in China as well, with both countries continuing to grow significantly. In Southeast Asia, you have a lot of emerging markets such as Indonesia and Vietnam (with a 90 million plus population). So we see a lot of continued growth there as well. So regardless of what happens in the more mature markets like Japan and Korea, the outlook is actually quite good. CE Asia: What do you hope to achieve for Rockwell Automation Asia Pacific in the next few years? Summerville: We have a very aggressive growth plan. Our Chairman and CEO, Keith Nosbusch, is looking double the size of our controls systems business by 2010, which implies significant growth in the Asia Pacific region. Over the next few years, we certainly have to continue to grow in the 15 to 20 percent range as a total company. I’d like to position us as a key player in the process automation market and in the OEM space. If we can accomplish that in the next few years, it would be a great success to look back on. I see Asia as becoming more integrated, a trend has been happening in the last three to five years in a big way. Rockwell Automation needs to leverage this and provide seamless service to customers wherever they are. It’s something that companies in the industrial automation space are going to have to be more proactive about. Because if you cannot provide consistent levels of service and support to customers wherever they are, they are going to look for other people to do business with.