Omron establishing sensing, control facility in China

Kyoto, Japan— Omron Corp. reports that it will establish, through its Industrial Automation Business (IAB) company, a new facility in Shanghai to strengthen and integrate Chinese design, development and manufacturing functions, and to offer a customer support center. The new facility will cost about 5 billion yen, and is expected to open in March 2006.

Presently, IAB maintains three facilities in Shanghai. Shanghai Omron Automation Co. Ltd. (OMP) develops and manufactures programmable logic controllers (PLCs); Omron (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (OMC) develops and manufactures sensors; and Omron (Shanghai) Control System Engineering Co. Ltd. (OMH) develops and manufactures temperature controllers and related equipment. Each of these subsidiaries has developed independent manufacturing, manufacturing management, quality management, and design and development technologies. The new facility is intended to integrate and expand all of IAB’s businesses in the Chinese market.

‘With this new facility, we are aiming to improve service to our customers with increased cost competitiveness, prompt reaction to local needs, and a customer support center,’ says Fumio Tateisi, Omron IAB’s president. ‘We hope to strengthen the quality and logistics of our customer support and services to contribute to the improvement of productivity, efficiency and quality in the China manufacturing industry.’

The new facility will include a new factory to strengthen and integrate manufacturing, as well as the tentatively named ‘IAB China Business Center Building’ to enhance design, development and local marketing functions. It also will include the new customer support center, seminar room, training rooms and other facilities. The buildings will be constructed in Shanghai’s Pudong area, which is near Omron’s OMP and OMC facilities.

Omron adds that its new business center and associated functions, and new logistics and information infrastructure, will hopefully help IAB achieve sales of 50 billion yen in its fiscal year ending in March 2008. This would be a four-fold sales increase over sales for the fiscal year that ended in March 2004. IAB also plan to increase manufacturing, design, development, engineering and sales personnel in China to 2,600 by the March 2008 fiscal year, which is also four times greater than present staffing levels.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com

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