| The German sales network PC Control conquers Baden-Württemberg |
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Germany is one of the world’s leading machine and plant construction countries. In this field, “Made in Germany” is still a sign of quality, reliability, performance and innovation. Following the first commercial activity in its home area of Westphalia, the young and innovative automation company, Beckhoff, began to overcome both the German and world markets, single-mindedly developing its own sales network. This marked the future path from a projectoriented sales strategy to one oriented around products as an automation manufacturer. The northern sales office in Hanover and the southern office in Balingen were founded as the first bases almost a decade ago. Both were structured as “home offices”, and each was manned by one sales engineer working alone. Over recent years other offices have been opened in the German sales area, so that a solid sales network has now been formed with nine sales and technical offices. Beckhoff are now represented in more than 30 countries around the world through subsidiary and partner companies. From the original southern home office, the Balingen site has developed into
a larger office with six employees. At the beginning, the few customers came
from Beckhoff’s “home sectors” of woodworking machines, window construction
machines and press engineering. The Baden-Württemberg area now has about
600 customers, ranging from large companies to engineering consultancies,
all looked after by the office in Balingen. In Baden-Württemberg the Beckhoff
automation products are distributed over all sectors of the machine and plant
construction industry. In addition to the sectors where Beckhoff began, new
specialist fields have developed, in packaging machines for instance, in assembly
and test engineering, in special machines and in building management systems.
New industrial sectors too, such as In Baden-Württemberg, the end customer market is dominated by the automobile industry and its suppliers. Here again, PC-based controller technology from Beckhoff is making more and more inroads into conventional solutions and historically based specifications for operating equipment. Where as PC control technology, consisting of an Industrial PC, fieldbus system and control software had to be presented to customers with “missionary zeal” by Beckhoff’s sales department only a few years ago, all three components are now established in the industrial environment. The pioneer work has paid off. PC control technology is recognized on the market now as a proven solution, and as an open, high-performance and economical alternative to classical controller technology. One guarantee for this certainly is the far reaching and complete Beckhoff controller environment for all automation tasks, as is described in the title story, “customized automation”.
Beckhoff subsidiary offices here look after customers through sales, support,
training and application support on site, of course bearing special regional
features in mind. You should know that we can do anything in Baden-Württemberg,
except speak
Frank Saueressig
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The demand for information is growing Beckhoff’s success is a result of expanded global sales network, listening to the automation market requirements and then quickly developing the product range to meet the market requirements. This fast pace product development has also increased the demand for information exchange and communication. In response, beginning next year we will publish an additional issue of PC Control. Three times a year, our customer magazine will provide information about current developments and worldwide application examples of Beckhoff technology. The focus of the magazine will continue to be on PC-based control technology,
which can be used in a variety of applications, as described in this issue:
for example in the advanced car production line at the Volkswagen factory
in South Africa . We look forward to your suggestions and feedback:
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Manager of the Balingen office