Motivated automation

Rockwell Automation, a leader in China's automation industry, celebrated its 20th anniversary in China this year by announcing that it has kept its growth rate in double digits for two decades.

And the United States-based business says its growth rate in China in 2008 will be up 30 percent over last year.

"With a history spanning 100 years, the past two decades have seen Rockwell Automation rapidly grow with China's manufacturing industry and accomplish major achievements along the way," says Tom O'Reilly, managing director and Chairman of Rockwell Automation (China) Ltd.

"We also witnessed and made contributions to the outstanding progress of China's manufacturing industry for the last 20 years. Our company's remarkable achievements would not have been possible without strong support of government leaders at all levels, customers and partners."

Since it first tapped into the China market in 1988, 10 years after the open-up and reform, Rockwell Automation has expanded itself in the nation by "200 times", says O'Reilly.

Currently, it has 25 sales operations in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan with more than 1,600 employees. It also has a channel network of 20 distributors and 30 system integrators.

"We are proud that our development strategy in China has been proven correct; we always judge our success by our customers' success," says O'Reilly.

Growing with China

In 1988, Rockwell Automation established its first entity in China, Allen-Bradley (Xiamen) Ltd.

The company's original purpose was to provide automation products and technologies for its old customers' new factories in China, including Pepsi, General Motors and Nestle.

"It was still early days for China's growing economy. The infrastructure was at a very low level, with a lot of room to be developed," says O'Reilly. "But we found that the Chinese government knew the importance of infrastructure construction and industrialization."

Rockwell Automation seized the opportunity and the same year, it established Beijing and Shanghai offices and two distribution centers in Xiamen and Hong Kong, and began to look for cooperation opportunities with local industry players.

"We first try to know our potential customers' challenges, then we explain to them how we can help them with our solutions," says O'Reilly.

At that time, China just started its modern industrialization, with a lot of demands for automation products and services. Soon, some big State-owned enterprises focused on metallurgy, oil and gas, and electric power became Rockwell Automation's clients.

"With the takeoff of China's manufacturing, we realized that China would be the most important emerging market in the near future," says O'Reilly.

After 20 years, the global manufacturing giants are still Rockwell Automation's big customers. However, Chinese local enterprises in more than 20 industries have also become the US company's target clients, covering automobiles, mining, energy, food and pharmaceuticals.

"We always pay attention to the market development and our customers' requirements, then shift our strategy quickly following their progress," says O'Reilly.

With Chinese consumer markets' booming, Rockwell Automation expanded its business to more industries such as food and pharmaceuticals.

From 2004, the company began to focus on providing solutions to small- and medium-sized enterprises in China's second- and third-tier cities, based on cooperation with industry giants.

"Compared with other markets in the world, Chinese customers are more willing to accept new technologies."

In terms of integrated architecture, Rockwell Automation's core business, China has been the biggest market for the company outside of the US.

More importantly, only 20 percent of the sales are contributed by the multinational companies' branches in China. More than 80 percent of the business comes from the big-sized State-owned enterprises in China.

To better serve the local customers, in 1999, Rockwell Automation set up a research and development center in Shanghai, as one of its four global research laboratories.

One year later, it established a software campus in Dalian, contributing to the development of China's automation software. It also has two other campus of this kind in the US and Europe.

Along with China economy's high-speed development, the need for automation and industrialization increased in the new century.

In 2003, Rockwell Automation set up an OEM application development center in Shenzhen, showing the importance of China's OEM market to the company

"During the past two decades, Rockwell Automation has listened to customer needs and explored solutions always with great customer involvement. We help customers succeed by providing the latest in automation products and solutions. Moreover, our principle of 'your success is ours' has been at the fore of our mission to grow with our customers," says O'Reilly.

"So far, we have established strong relationships with Chinese corporations, end users, channel partners, third-party partners, universities, design institutes, OEMs and our suppliers."

A bright future

"We have established a very good foundation here in China. Now we have a new mission from our CEO: to grow faster," says O'Reilly. "We have been a leader in the automation market, however, we are targeting to occupy the leading position in all segments."

He says Rockwell Automation is aiming to continue the fast market growth in the next three to five years.

O'Reilly's confidence comes from the Chinese government's appeal for an environmentally friendly society and attention to safety production in the recent years.

"With economic globalization, China's manufacturing industry faces both opportunities and challenges. Rockwell Automation's automation information technology as well as its support and service network, throughout China and the world, will help enterprises cope with the challenge of industrial upgrades," says O'Reilly.

"Additionally, our automation solutions will assist overcoming the constraints of resource shortages, environmental issues and energy consumption. We will help enterprises realize the green manufacturing model that has high added value with low energy consumption and pollution, to help achieve the great transformation from a 'Strong Manufacturing Country' to a 'Strong Green Manufacturing Country'."

With Rockwell Automation's power energy management system tailored for China National Offshore Oil Corp's four offshore platforms, more than 40 percent of energy has been saved.

"We also hope our safety products and technologies will help Chinese enterprises improve production safety and reduce manufacturing risks, to increase manufacturing efficiency," says O'Reilly.

"We are confident of China's economy's strong growth, which provided development opportunity for us in the past two decades and will bring more room for us to grow with China."

(China Daily 12/08/2008 page7)