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Wednesday, August 29, 2007 |
In one of the more philosophical and intriguing press releases I've ever received, Advantech CEO K.C. Liu announced plans to reorganize the Industrial Automation Group (also known as the eAutomation Group). Final details are to be released in the last quarter of 2007. Liu says that two trends precipitated the reorganization-Web 2.0 and globalization. The Web 2.0 part of the equation consists of an internal Wiki for collaboration. The globalization part entails company reorganization along regional, rather than departmental, lines.
Says Liu in the announcement, "It is necessary for entrepreneurs to think hard about redistributing and recombining all their resources in order to restructure and reorganize successfully; and to re-think technological development strategies. Furthermore, enterprises must wisely deploy their manpower by devoting enterprise resources in the most strategically competitive places."
The release quotes the book "The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" by Ori Brafman that uses the spider and starfish analogy to refer to having a decentralized structure that permits regeneration. "Using this analogy, Advantech presently adopts a multilayered structural organization known as a Spider-this allows every department to focus exclusively on its own tasks with operations and decision-making centered on headquarters. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the company cannot command and respond to regional market demands as readily as it wishes. So, Advantech plans to adopt a Starfish structure that fully integrates all department functions from the headquarters with regional business units based on decentralization and open communication. Regional market-oriented sales teams will focus on their own specific vertical market; Design-To-Order-Services (DTOS) can supply customers with tailored products and services using the same back-office infrastructure and all divisions will economize on resources and improve efficiency."
Advantech has established a Customer Fulfillment Center to effectively allocate resources, systemize departmental tasks and coordinate assignment workflows for each division. The goal, according to the company, is to pre-empt the competition by shortening product/service delivery time and improve overall customer service efficiency. Coupled with product integration, this new arrangement has helped Advantech to better define its product development direction, access new markets more quickly, and improve its product design quality. Through close collaboration with vertical application solution partners, Advantech can advance product competitiveness and meet customers' expectations.
Advantech has set up a "Wiki" website called AdvantechWiki as a collaborative tool to promote inter-departmental innovation and knowledge sharing and to amass creativity, technological research and development experience. According to the online collaborative Web-based encyclopedia Wikipedia, a wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. AdvantechWiki encourages data collection, knowledge sharing and intelligent communication between cross-regional and inter-departmental personnel. The company wishes to accelerate organizational reformation and R&D efficiency by promoting knowledge sharing forums through AdvantechWiki.
An all-round structural reorganization will be launched in second half of 2007 to stimulate direct marketing deployment and strategic development; the goal is to create a more globalized and integrated organization. Advantech will continue its strong commitment to invest in R&D and further develop branding strategies that exploit fresh market opportunities. Through strengthened, wide-ranging customer services, Advantech anticipates continued growth and expansion by facing the challenges of global competition.
2:57:09 PM 
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Something is going on at SAP and Wonderware. Not sure what it is, but there is another major defection in the U.S. part of SAP. Invensys just announced that Sudipta Bhattacharya has left SAP and is joining Wonderware as chief software solutions officer. This follows Wonderware's pick up of Rick Bullotta earlier this month who left SAP to become vice president and chief technology officer. Shai Agassi, who was a proponent of the SAP Netweaver strategy that used technology from Lighthammer--Bullottaâo[dot accent]s former company acquired by SAP--left SAP in March of this year.
At Wonderware, Bhattacharya will be responsible for driving strategy and growing the Invensys and Wonderware software solutions business reporting to Mike Bradley Sr., president of Wonderware, according to the press release.
Before joining SAP in January 2002, Bhattacharya worked at i2 Technologies Inc. in its strategic services group. He held a consulting role that involved advising company executives on supply chain strategy. Prior to i2 Technologies, he worked for 10 years at Tata Group, a business conglomerate based in India, where he held different operational positions and built his strong functional background in core manufacturing and supply chain operations.
"Invensys and Wonderware customers in industrial information, operations management and manufacturing IT are increasingly seeking software solutions that significantly improve the efficiency, performance and agility of their operations," Bradley said. "At SAP, Sudipta has been very successful in building the manufacturing ecosystem and delivering high-value software solutions at the enterprise level. I know that Sudipta is looking forward to the challenge of leveraging the significant opportunities which have been created at Wonderware and Invensys while continuing to help grow the global real-time manufacturing ecosystem."
2:12:36 PM
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I see we set off Carl's FUD meter with this article at Automation World. I don't like messing around with direct quotes from sources, but I probably should have challenged that comment on Ethernet. The usual ODVA line is "standard, unmodified" which I presume is a dig at industrial Ethernet implementations that use "custom" rather than "standard" ASICs. (e.g., Profinet's real-time implementation, EtherCat, Ethernet Power Link). I hadn't seen the "corrupted stack" comment before.
The whole whose Ethernet is better argument reminds me of the PC-based control wars when the leading (or should I say surviving) companies at the time--Steeplechase and Think and Do--argued over whose real-time kernel was better. That just succeeded in confusing potential customers who mostly just stayed with what they were comfortable with--PLCs. Now both of those companies' products, since combined then shopped, are part of Phoenix Contact's control line. And it just sells control.
The real enemy of digital Ethernet-based fieldbuses right now is doing the same old thing because that's comfortable. Better would be all the camps showing the many compelling benefits of the technology in order to expand the overall market.
7:24:34 AM
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This shows some of the dangers and challenges of dealing with other countries. It's important to develop local trusted contacts as I discussed a little in this article in July.
After Stumbling, Mattel Cracks Down in China. Mattel, which appears to have stumbled in part because it had become overconfident about its ability to operate in China without major problems, is in crisis mode. By LOUISE STORY. [NYT > Business]
7:05:44 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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