4 | REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OMRON T T Virginia Wright Automation experts setting the pace OMRON provides solutions across various manufacturing, logistics, horticulture and healthcare industries. “Sistema, in Auckland, has on-site over 100 robots, and using OMRON technology and robots, they’ve grown the team from 100 people in the early ’90s to now, where they have over 400 staff on-site.” With over 90 years of experience behind it, global electronics company, OMRON, is a leader in industrial automation, robotics and healthcare products that are used worldwide, and throughout New Zealand and Australia. The company provides solutions across various manufacturing, logistics, horticulture and healthcare industries. Invariably, their solutions aim “to improve lives and contribute to a better society”, just like one of their earliest creations, the digital blood-pressure monitor now used worldwide. Closer to home, the airbridges connecting airports to aircraft, which are widely used at airports throughout New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific, are controlled by OMRON’s hardware and technology. This is the result of a 35-year relationship with J&D McLennan in Upper Hutt, Wellington. The collaboration is typical of the work they might do with any one of their 2000 customers in New Zealand, whether big or small. Lyndon Fowler has been with OMRON for 15 years, progressing from graduate engineer to country manager. “We’re known as an innovative company, in the TOP100 globally, but if it’s not our core focus, we sell the technology off. An example would be the facial recognition algorithms now found on some smart phones, which OMRON created years ago,” Lyndon says. “We also designed the first ATM, which was released in Japan in the 1970s. None of which is our core business these days,” he explains. Many of their sensing and technology solutions are less easily recognisable, depending on how old you are, but you don’t have to understand them to see what a difference they can make to New Zealand’s industrial and manufacturing industries’ efficiency, which is seen as lagging behind the world. Far from taking jobs from humans, which is the commonly held fear around automated systems and robots, they are just as likely to result in a company’s expansion as their figures improve along with their efficiency, and health and safety. One of OMRON New Zealand’s biggest success stories illustrates the point, explains Lyndon. “Sistema, in Auckland, has on-site over 100 robots, and using OMRON technology and robots, they’ve grown the team from 100 people in the early ’90s to now, where they have over 400 staff on-site. It’s about efficiency. Workers used to work manually with the injection moulders that use molten plastic to form the plastic containers. Robots can now do that work 24 hours a day, with no complaints, and no risk to the health and safety of workers, just like the robots that can assemble the blue clips on to the side of the containers with no risk of RSI in the workers’ thumbs.” Lyndon thinks New Zealand is still in the early stages of improving efficiency, health, and safety through automation and robotics, but it’s increasingly the top priority of most machine manufacturers. Gathering data is an essential part of the shift, along with using automated or semi-automated machines and robots for the core function. OMRON’s SYSMAC technology is not only used to program the controller, robot, and/ or camera to perform a function, whether it’s moving 20kg boxes from a conveyor belt to a pallet, or carrying out preventative maintenance. It also now offers solutions aimed at bridging the gap between OT, operational technology, in other words, “the machine”, and IT, in layman’s terms, your laptop. As the old adage goes, knowledge is power, and OMRON SYSMAC technology now allows seamless control of the data, along with the machine generating it. The knowledge gathered will enable companies to gauge how efficiently things are running (or not) and so take steps to improve them if needed. REMOTELY MONITOR AND CONTROL: • Your Orchard • Packingline • Coolstore No stress, you have control. RICADO is proudly associated with Omron 0800 RICADO 07 575 4601 info@ricado.co.nz www.ricado.co.nz
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