Publication date: 11 February 2010
2010 will definitely be another year full of new challenges. According to CEO Günter Lauber the global SIPLACE team is well prepared to look positive into the future. In this interview CEO Günter Lauber answers some of the most important questions regarding the future of Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems.
Lauber: I am certain that thanks to its successful carve-out the Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems business (SEAS) is optimally positioned in this new and different market. Most of all, I am very happy that we did not sit still doing nothing, like so many others, but that we took action quickly and in a goal-oriented manner. The “new” SEAS is faster and more flexible than ever before, because its structures and procedures were optimized to better meet its own needs. In my eyes at least as important as these organizational changes, however, is our innovation offensive.
The new SIPLACE SX platform, the new MultiStar CPP head and many other innovations prove the continued competitive strength of SEAS. Even in the difficult year 2009, SIPLACE has again shown that the team stands for innovation and customer benefits.
Last, but not least, SEAS is headed by a highly competent management team that on average has more than 20 years of experience in electronics manufacturing and is intimately familiar with the global market and its developments and trends.
To summarize, I can state that the carve-out has improved the competitiveness of SEAS significantly. The SIPLACE team continues to be one of the big players on the market for SMT placement solutions and will keep setting standards as an innovation and technology leader.
Lauber: As I mentioned earlier, the SEAS business unit with its innovative and technologically leading electronics manufacturing solutions was transferred to wholly owned Siemens subsidiaries in January 2009 under the name Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems (SEAS). This step became necessary because SEAS with its outstanding products no longer fits into Siemens AG’s core portfolio with the sectors “Energy”, “Industry” and “Healthcare”, and its synergies with other Business Units are limited. The new constellation makes it possible to sell SEAS to an investor or bring it into a partnership with a suitable partner, for example in a joint venture. No such partner has been selected at this time, however.
In any case, Siemens AG will proceed with exceptional care and responsibility, because the objective is to find the best possible solution for SEAS. The overarching goal is to develop a long-term outlook for the Siemens team and its customers, and to ensure that any changes will be sustainable and in the best interest of our customers and our employees.
Lauber: The continuing global economic crisis has hit the electronics industry hard. No company was able to escape from the turmoil. My stated goal is to put and keep SEAS into an ideal position as a mid-sized, independent company. This requires optimized processes and dealing with the SIPLACE staff, resources and equipment in a highly responsible manner. An organization that is not properly sized for the market’s opportunities cannot be fit for the future. That’s why we are continuing with our restructuring measures as part of our carve-out processes and in close coordination with Siemens. In particular, this applies to the step-by-step reduction of overhead functions, which grew under the roof of the Siemens group and made sense at the time because of our integration into the respective regional and local structures. Now that we are an independent, medium-sized company, however, we can operate with a much leaner framework.
On the other hand, it has always been Siemens’s goal to give the SIPLACE team the processes and financial resources it needs to successfully operate as an independent mid-sized company in the future. Each additional step will be taken with this goal in mind. Siemens AG accompanies its subsidiary Siemens Electronics Assembly Systems in this transformation with the corresponding care in order to provide the foundation for SEAS’s sustained success.
Lauber: We believe Asia, led by China, will continue to make solid progress. The West with Europe and the U.S., on the other hand, will recover a little more slowly. However, I must say we have been very pleasantly surprised with the notable success we are having since Productronica with the introduction of our new SIPLACE SX. In just a few months, sales of this new model have outperformed all expectations. We have not only seen quite a lot of European companies investing in the SIPLACE SX, but US companies as well. In our customer meetings we are also hearing that the SIPLACE SX will be the machine of choice for future investments as economic conditions improve. Hence our optimism is growing for a much better year for SIPLACE.
What will make all the difference, however, is the timing in point when customers feel confident in the market and are ready to invest again. Once this point is reached, we believe the market will speed up its recovery and investment projects that are currently being put off will finally be implemented. We recognize that many customers are in need of technical upgrades such as the need to place 01005 components or to introduce build-to-order concepts, methods and associated products. When our customers are ready - SIPLACE stands ready - with the expertise, the innovative technology and the future-oriented products to meet current manufacturing requirements.
Lauber: The current crisis has taught everybody in the electronics industry that ‘business as usual’ is no longer an option. The same applies for placement solutions. Individual features no longer matter.
What we need are strong solutions that combine hardware, software and services intelligently. Whether you are an OEM or a contract manufacturer, companies that set up SMT lines without a concept by simply putting machines in a row have no future in our industry.” Here we see our main growth area.
There is no other supplier who can offer such flexible and modern placement solutions together with the in-depth know-how about SMT manufacturing processes. Take our new SIPLACE SX as an example: with its capacity-on-demand it allows our customers to get a handle on production fluctuations, to operate in an order-oriented manner, and to let production ‘breathe’ in line with changes in business volume. This is the future of our industry.
Lauber: First, we want to keep developing and delivering placement machines that are easy to use and highly reliable. Second, we want to give our customers the ability to scale their requirements, i.e. to make a basic investment and then be able to expand or contract their machine performance as needed without having to modify the line or the floor space requirements. The best placement solutions today are flexibly scalable and designed for the customer's specific production environment by combining hardware, software and service modules. This strategy provides the best possible support for our customers' build-to-order (BTO) concepts. In practice and on the hardware side, this means that we are offering for the first time the ability to scale flexibility and performance independently with our new SIPLACE SX. Its replaceable gantries, which can be installed or uninstalled in only a few minutes, are the technological basis for this innovation. The customer can purchase these gantries or rent them for short, medium or long term via our Rent-a-Gantry service. We call this ‘Capacity on Demand’. What makes this model especially interesting for many of our customers is the fact that they no longer have to invest in fixed assets when they need new equipment, but that it turns their fixed costs into variable costs that are only incurred when their order situation requires it.
SIPLACE SX and Capacity on Demand are important prerequisites for the future BTO concepts of our customers. Another very important focus area in our BTO strategy is the exchange of knowledge with all the other parties in the SMT process chain.
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