The little van that could What do you do if your customers are dispersed across remote areas in the

country? Do what Siemens does: hit the road, Jack. By Heinz Bulos October 2003 ure, you know that Siemens make mobile phones. Or even that it builds infrastructure for the telecommunications industry. But I bet you dont know it makes motors and drives for manufacturing companies. Siemens Automation & Drives (A&D) is a little known division. In the Philippines, it makes up just 5 percent of total revenues. But its a growing business. Among engineers and plant managers, automation is the Holy Grail of manufacturing. And Siemens is a major player. Automation and computing are not that different from each other, though the technologies apply to diverse environments factories and offices, respectively. The use of Ethernet, standards, and even Microsoft software are common to both. Their technologies are converging and integrating the entire supply chain. A back office ERP system can be hooked up to the microprocessor-controlled machine at the plant. Say, a machine that packages toothpaste. By using a Visual Basic program, the machine records in real time the number of raw materials that come in and how many toothpaste packs come out. Instead of an operator manually entering data into his logbook, which his supervisor summarizes in his shift report, and in turn is submitted to the plant manager as a daily report, automation can send such data including efficiency, availability, and downtime in real time, allowing the plant manager, now

with access to the right information at the right time, to react quickly and accurately to any changes. And orders transmitted from the ERP system to the factory gives the plant manager the flexibility and accuracy to adjust his manufacturing capacity. Engineers live for this stuff. They also dont have the time and luxury of attending conventions, schmoozing with colleagues. They spend their days at the plant, tweaking processes and squeezing out every ounce of inefficiency in the supply chain. If you ask them to come to a certain place, Salvador Buddy Bonifacio, Senior Vice President of Automation and Drives Group of Siemens, says, only supervisors and managers attend, not the engineers, the people really doing the job. So Siemens decided to hit the road. Of course, theres nothing novel about that. Vendors go and visit their corporate clients all the time. But what if your customers are dispersed all over the country? And you need to demo heavy equipment such as automatic motors and drives? Thats where the little van comes into the picture. The van is a white Nissan Ad Max SLX that can carry two passengers in front and the aforementioned heavy equipment at the back. If youre on the road, you cant miss it. It has the Siemens logo on it and a huge photo of the upper quarter part of a mans face plastered on the sides. And if youre in Ormoc or Iligan, its a little bit, well, outta sight.

Siemens dubbed its road show the TIA Innovation Tour (TIA stands for Totally Integrated Automation), which started worldwide in 1996 and in the Philippines in 1997. But Siemens started using the van only early this year. Its the first in Asia, and is only one of three in the world (two are in Europe, and the one in Germany, uses, for patriotic reasons, a Mercedes Benz). So why here? Bonifacio says, It depends on the thinking of each country, how they want to promote their products. Others prefer to hold one event, say, every year, and invite clients to come over. But in the Philippines, the geographic diversity makes the road show imperative. Its not easy being on the road for five weeks, notes Bonifacio. Its a tough job, but someones got to do it. Alternately, or by pair, A&D team members hit the road nationwide. Theres Arvin de Jesus, Assistant Manager, Solutions Process for Automation; Princess Caraan, Marketing Specialist, Automation and Drives; Jorey Guzman, Customer Support; and Engineer Lito Torres, A&D Training Manager. The Siemens van has logged in 5,000 kilometers in just three months of the national road trip. And it has gone to more places than the average Filipino. So far, Siemens has reached various customers in Visayas and Mindanao, in such places as Dumaguete, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Ormoc, Davao, and Bacolod. Look, theres the Siemens van at the San Juanico Bridge! In front of the Maria Cristina Falls! Near the McArthur monument! As of press time, the van is making rounds across Luzon. In all, Siemens

has visited close to 50 companies. When practical, the company organizes group presentations in every major city, allowing it to cover more customers in one fell swoop. But often, it takes a one-on-one approach. Bonifacio says their main objective is to introduce new concepts in automation to give everyone an opportunity to hear and see. Although the company will only get to see concrete results next year when their customers plan for new projects, the TIA Innovation Tour is achieving its goals of generating awareness, generating sales leads, and improving its relationships with its customers (as deployment is done typically by authorized distributors). Many of the companies are appreciative of being selected, adds Bonifacio. Customers from Visayas and Mindanao, given their distance from Metro Manila, are more open to new technologies and are always hungry for information. With so many manufacturing plants, Bonifacio says the potential market is large but the volume is small, as projects are limited to retrofit and upgrades of machinery (new plants that are set up import their machines). But Siemens goal is to increase the A&D business to 10 percent of total revenues, according to Bonifacio. Thats not farfetched. In 1991, there was only one person handling the A&D market Bonifacio himself. Now, there are 28 people working for him. Still, theres strong competition from the likes of ABB, Rockwell, Yugawa, GE, Honeywell, and Groupe Schneider. The A&D Group currently offers a wide variety of electrical products and systems for residential, commercial

and industrial applications in Automation Systems, Process Instrumentation, Analytics, Motors and Drives, Low Voltage Power Distribution, Control Devices, and Electrical Installation Technology. We hitchhiked on one Siemens TIA road show presentation for Monde Nissin in its Sta. Rosa, Laguna plant. Siemens is represented by de Jesus, Caraan, and Guzman, along with Ronnie Alido, General Manager, and Maureen Alido, Promotions manager of Gram Industrial, a Siemens distributor. Theyre giving a PowerPoint presentation followed by a demo of, among others, the Simatic S7 PLC (programmable logic controller), a machine which controls other machines, to a bunch of plant personnel. They make a pitch for TIA, with its fully-integrated range of products. Later, we talked with Monde Nissin Plant Manager for Biscuits Tomasito Boy Tiu. Tiu admits that automation is a sensitive subject in the country, as it runs counter to labor interests. Besides, he points out, Automation to reduce people is not always a feasible solution. For instance, handling CocaCola cases that weigh 10 kilos is hard for manual labor, so a palletizer makes more sense. But the cost for such is so high that it does not justify getting rid of manual labor. So, while in Europe, some plants can run automatically with only three operators, its not so feasible here as the cost of automation is tremendously high. But, in cases where automation does make sense also financially, the benefits are undeniable. Since the cycle is repeatable, and theres no human intervention, automation will

result to consistency of quality. In the process of baking for instance, if an operator manually monitors time and temperature, that can always lead to inconsistency and therefore possible quality problems. Automation increases accuracy and productivity, with workers doing less monotonous checks and more value-added jobs. The downside of automation, Tiu asserts, is that if a machine fails and there are no available parts, then youre in trouble. Thats why he says he prefers to work with Siemens and Gram Industrial because, while it imported its machines (which already came with automation features), both vendors provide local service and support. Monde Nissin installed several S7 models. Tiu considers it a stable product unlike computers which change models so often. Support is still there, and were not forced to upgrade. Tiu appreciates the efforts of Siemens in updating his personnel on the latest technology. Back at the demo room, the engineers and plant employees were peppering de Jesus and Guzman with questions. Both answer each query clearly and patiently. Soon, the briefing was over. The Siemens team packs the machines into solid, steel cases, as well as the laptop, projector, and the marketing collaterals. All in about fifteen minutes. Another day, another demo. Tomorrow, the A&D team and the Siemens van are off to another site. All in a days work.