Global leadership in automation arena

Mr. Sameer Gandhi, MD, OMRON Industrial Automation, India

Q. Omron Automation is being one of the leading manufacturers of components & systems of industrial automation & has established its brand in the automation industry, how did in the last few years Omron Automation India achieved remarkable position in Indian market?
Incepted in India in the year 1996, OMRON AUTOMATION PVT. LTD. has come a long way catering to all key automation requirements of the manufacturing sector based on the themes of innovation, quality, safety & environment. With a wide reach in the country, today, we have notable presence in innumerable industrial segments such as Packaging, F&B, FMCG, Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Machine Tool, SPM, and Textiles to name a few. The product and service portfolio has been expanded to include automation systems, sensing & safety components, vision, robotics, motion & drives and application engineering to support all gamut of OMRON products, enabling us to collaborate with our clients as ‘automation partners’ by providing total solutions for the benefit of the society.

OMRON believes in ‘GEMBA’ methodology that is “striving to create value by working with the clients earnestly at their workplaces as their automation partners”.

Our total -solutions centric approach, a wide range of products comprising of more than 30,000 variants coupled with the ‘GEMBA’ methodology are some of the USPs which differentiate OMRON from other players in the market. In terms of technology prowess, OMRON has been able to offer unique and state-of-the-art innovative solutions which are helping the manufacturing establishments to achieve higher productivity levels which seemed distant to achieve. Our robust and exclusive ‘ONE Automation’ platform “SYSMAC” designed to bring flexibility, accuracy, reliability, speed and efficiency in diverse industrial applications has been a major success story. We believe that our solutions stand out since we’re able to give a completely integrated solution comprising of input devices (like vision systems, sensors, etc), PLCs, output devices (like robots) as well as safety, sensing and control products all on one platform.

We’re also very focused on providing quick delivery of our products and solutions and to this objective we’ve setup a warehouse in Bangalore. This warehouse, holds stock for many of our fast moving products as well as maintaining exclusive stocks for many of our customers. This insulates our customers from potential shipment and custom clearance delays when moving products from outside the country. We believe that this facility is one of the largest such facilities for the market space that we currently operate in.

Q. Can you please brief us about international alliances & Omron’s global infrastructure? Also brief us about the quality policy for the business?
Globally, OMRON invests approximately 6.8%of its revenue for research and development. Renowned for its high-quality in the industrial automation domain, OMRON has been earnestly following progressive practices for a continuous improvement in manufacturing techniques so as to live up to the expectations of the clients and to meet the international standards

OMRON is dedicated to support its customers by becoming Automation Partner and taking care of all requirements, starting from proof of concept to development, commissioning and after sales services (including training and repairs) to deal with any support required.

Q. What are the latest initiatives Omron Automation has undertaken in industrial automation space? Which are your focus areas?
As you know, very recently we’ve launched the Automation Centre (ATC) at Mumbai. The centre was inaugurated by the company’s key leaders from the industrial automation team from Japan, Singapore and India. This is OMRON’s fifth such centre in the world, after Japan, Spain, USA and China, and is a very strong indicator of OMRON’s commitment to support the Indian customers. Based on the philosophy of “you create the concept, we will help you to make it work”, the centre aims to showcase OMRON’s expertise in the ‘sensing & control’ technology so that the customers are able to test their new ideas, experience and understand how they can bring more improvements to their current manufacturing set up and can become more competitive in their respective fields in the industrial automation domain. We are confident of achieving relevant traction in many industries through this initiative

Office overview

Q. What are the market opportunities for Omron Automation products in India? How do you plan to position these products?
India is a young country with a rapidly growing urban middle class with increasing purchasing ower. Also, the urban lifestyle is making people more quality conscious and encouraging them to consume more packaged goods. This demographic dividend is also resulting in higher investments to build the infrastructure. We expect these trends to boost the OEM, consumer, automotive and Panel Boards industries. These industries are our target sectors.

Q. In order to sustain at frontier position, what are the marketing strategies that are applied & will be applied for Indian market?
As of now we would let out customers explore our Automation Centre (ATC) facility in order to innovate.

Q. Please highlight more about Omron’s top line product range? Is there any new launch or in pipeline stage?
OMRON’s Automation products are there to cater for various industries. Our solutions with PLC and motion controller platform are based for packaging industry. Our vision system solutions have been proved effectively on machines for pharmaceuticals, F&B and personal care products. Apart from these we have industrial components like; power supply, relays, timers, and temperature controllers etc which are best suited to the EPC Contractors, Panel Builders and Electrical Distributors. Automation evolution is a continuous process which we believe and follow. Products in OMRON are launched keeping in mind the necessity of the hour. We plan to launch a new motion controller to address the mass market in the near future

Q. Please brief us about your vision for Omron Automation India for coming years?
Omron’s vision is to “Bring innovation to manufacturing by automation and enrich the lives of people around the world.” It is this vision that we’ll also follow in India and grow our business by focusing on productivity and quality conscious industries in India.