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News Release from: Omron Electronics
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 21 July 2000
Omron UK man takes on European
responsibility
Clive Lattimer, Omron Electronics' UK managing director, has taken on additional Europe-wide responsibility for the Drives and Automation Business Units.
Clive Lattimer, Omron Electronics' UK managing director, has taken on additional Europe-wide responsibility for the Drives and Automation Business Units This will involve running factories and development centres on mainland Europe, as well as strategic planning and implementation
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 8 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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This move is part of Omron's on-going drive to be a truly global organisation, and is in parallel with the appointment of Roberto Maietti to oversee the Sensors Business Unit and Misha Trifunovic for Industrial Components.
"Many companies that call themselves global still keep most of their key functions in their founding country, so remain ponderously slow, function-based hierarchies," explains Lattimer.
"But Omron set out to be global from Day One, part of which is that we recognise the constant need for change to our worldwide structure and management." Originally Omron set up local sales and support companies across Europe.
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These were fairly autonomous and achieved the success of at least ten per cent (and often far higher) growth every year for the last 25 years.
However in recent years both business and technology have become far more international and Omron wants to reflect this.
More and more companies are multinational, and most major projects include at least some trans-border issues.
"Our new structure addresses all the issues that have been coming to prominence.
Interestingly, we are also acutely aware of local needs and cultures.
Some of the soft drinks and burger companies impose a sort of 'neutered Americana' culture into each new country they conquer, but we prefer to reflect and act within the regional tastes, differences, practices, and engineering standards.
"Increasing efficiency today is not about reducing direct labour costs.
Mechanisation and automation did that.
The issue is overheads: market intelligence, product and process design, quality assurance, promotion, and distribution.
These elements can be addressed over a large geographic area to get economies of scale, but that is not the whole story by a long chalk.
The critical point is customer care: you cannot impose your culture on a client, but must work comfortably alongside his.
Internally Omron is global, externally we are culturally local." One example of Omron's willingness to think and act 'out of the box' is its just-announced agreement to co-operate at a global level with Rockwell on the development of DeviceNet systems.
Another, not yet so apparent in the UK, is the broadening out of its base from the factory automation arena.
"Omron's new structure simplifies the transfer of technology from Japan to Europe and vice versa," summarises Lattimer.
"This allows us to support products like optical inspection systems for PCB components, RFID tagging, automotive components and assemblies, whilst we can influence Japan in areas like mechatronics where Europe is particularly strong. Request free introductory details about products from Omron Electronics ...
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