Thursday, November 30, 2006

Yokogawa Users Conference I am in Houston at the Yokogawa Corp. of America Technology Fair and Users Conference. This is my second US conference plus I attended they company's 90th anniversary party and expo in Tokyo last year. The last US conference had an attendance of just over 200--a record at the time although attendance was reduced somewhat due to the impending landing of Hurricane Katrina. This year registrations are around 800 with about 740 end users. Add in 200 Yokogawa employees and you have a pretty big conference. No blog yesterday and late today due to technical difficulties (a euphemism for Gary's stupidity). I left my computer power cable at home when I packed. Since I use a Macintosh PowerBook, it's not easy to find a friend whose power cord I can borrow. There is no doubt that the first impression the company wanted to make with its customers and others is its commitment to innovation. In his keynote, CEO Isao Uchida pointed to his commitment to invest in R&D--to the tune of 9.3% of sales. This ranks 8th in Japan among Japanese companies in terms of percentage of sales and 56th in terms of gross Yen. Uchida and his management team reinforced that idea several times to me during a private interview this morning. Then there was the futures exhibit (no photos allowed) at the technology fair. I saw most of these technologies last year when I was in Tokyo so I had already been impressed. No one will leave that exhibit thinking that Yokogawa is just another instrumentation company. Here's a hint of technologies under development: IP (Internet Protocol) instruments; IP version 6; 40 Gb fiber optic networking; optic switching; plus a bunch of silicon advances (it makes its own semiconductors, and its own wireless technology). In addition, researchers are hard at work on network security. The next area is growth. "Uchida-san" has made headlines with his challenge to the company to become the leading process control supplier. When asked about progress in that area, he told me that growth outside Japan first half 2006 over first half 2005 was 61%. He assured me the company was well on its way toward achieving his 2010 goal. An area that I think is key to both automation company growth and manufacturing company profitability is a product set often called performance management. When I brought that topic up to the management team, there were smiles and recognition of the importance of this solution. Yokogawa introduced Insight Suite AE (for asset excellence) that is a big first step down the performance management road. Uchda linked this to another trend that the company's executives see--customer need for engineering support and solution consulting from their suppliers. There's more to say, but I'm out to learn more. 6:26:52 PM    comment []