While OMRON’s mission and vision remain the same, its value proposition changed together with the business landscape. From providing specific lines of business, the Japanese company has evolved into a value generator in automation, a goal it set in 2017 as part of the corporation’s Value Generation 2020 or VG2.0.
For OMRON Management Center of America Inc. Chairman, President and CEO Nigel Blakeway, while the company may have a lot of competitors in selected areas of automation, none of them offer the “complete package.”
“Our automation business globally has the largest share in our portfolio of businesses. It certainly is our most pro table area,” Blakeway stressed.
“OMRON offers complete automation solutions broken down systematically known as ILORS (Input, Logic, Output, Robotics, Safety). From automotive to health care, harmony between humans and machines is always our particular focus, as well as the industry ‘internet of things’ in this time of growth. That gives us a completely different value proposition for our customers. Everything we do is sensing and control,” he explained.
Amid this shift, OMRON remains socially and environmentally conscious. This ethos coincides with the company’s commitment to looking after its customers, increasing equipment productivity, minimizing downtimes and conducting regular preventative maintenance checks.
“The respect for the customer is observed within the entire organization,” stressed Blakeway, who welcomes the resurgence of the manufacturing industry in the region. “Manufacturing in the Midwest is coming back in a good way and we are benefitting from that. We are positioning ourselves correctly to support our customers’ needs.”
In the field of health care, for instance, OMRON’s corporate social responsibility aims to take part in as many “zero events” in personal wellness as possible. This has led to various partnerships with other companies that specialize, for example, in cardiovascular analysis.
These collaborations have prompted OMRON to develop medical devices slated for launch this year.
For further growth, OMRON as has focused on mergers and acquisitions, and also has established OMRON Venture Capital for this purpose.
The new company supports innovations that the firm does not yet have, while keeping investments flowing to their core businesses.
“When you look at the IoT world, there are many areas that are out of our areas of expertise. We are open to open-source innovation,” Blakeway explained.
And in 2018, OMRON will open its first American research center in California.
“We believe that the sustainability of the company will be very closely linked to our goals,” said Blakeway, who also echoed the words of OMRON founder Kazuma Tateisi: “To the machine give the work; to the man give the thrill of creation.”
