One of the first impressions that strikes a visitor is size. The USA is 9,631,448 sq. km, Canada is 9,984,670 sq. km and Mexico is 1,972,650 sq. km for a total of 21,588,768 sq. km. The State of Texas alone is about twice the size of Germany. There are 293 million people in the USA, 33 million in Canada and 105 million in Mexico for a total of 431 million of various races and religions. The landscape is also very diverse ranging from deserts in the west and south to tropical in the south east and to arctic in the north. Temperatures vary from -50 to over 50 degrees C. The highest point is 6194 m in Alaska and the lowest is Death Valley at -86 m.

Distances are also large. It is very difficult to jump in a car and drive around the continent to see customers. A straight line from Miami, Florida to Seattle,Washington is over 4,300 km and just to drive from the sights of Orlando, Florida to the high spots in Manhattan, New York is almost 2,000 km.

To help solve customers’ needs, Beckhoff has also had to diversify from its initial location to multiple locations around North America. Sales offices have now been established in Atlanta (Georgia), Austin (Texas), Cleveland (Ohio), Harrisburg (Pennsylvania), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Raleigh (North Carolina), San Diego (California) and Toronto (Ontario). Engineering offices have also been established in Austin, Pittsburg (Pennsylvania), San Diego and Toronto and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. And we plan more to come as we continue our growth.

So from a small start in 1998, Beckhoff Automation LLC has now grown dramatically and will reach over $12 million in sales in 2004. The number of customers has also dramatically increased with over 600 active accounts. Many of these accounts are users of European machinery since North American companies are large consumers of imported machinery. To manage the demanding service needs of our customers, Beckhoff Automation LLC has had to invest in both people and inventory and will be moving into a larger facility near Minneapolis in August to accommodate this growth. Our parts warehouse will double in size, a dedicated repair facility will be created as well as more office space for engineering and support.

We believe that Beckhoff North America’s growth will continue at a very strong rate because companies are looking to newer technologies to improve their competitiveness as they are being driven by global competition to drastically improve their productivity. Areas being looked at to solve the productivity issue are varied but often include cost reductions, improved throughput, better flexibility, scaleable systems, improved uptime/system reliability, less rework, improved use of assets and reducing work in process.

Many North American companies are using all or parts of the process called “lean manufacturing” to help meet the new objectives. Some key automation techniques used at these progressive companies include integrating multiple activities into one machine and reducing floor space and improving work flow, reducing parts by standardizing, reducing the number of vendors, replacing mechanical systems with more flexible electronic systems, and connecting machinery and processes to the corporate supervisory and MES systems. These new techniques are driving the need within automation systems for Ethernet connectivity at all control levels, simplification of control architectures, integrated systems, increased use of servos, lower cost software tools, smaller components, lower cost systems, increased accuracy, faster responses, improved diagnostic capabilities and local data storage.

Graham Harris, President Beckhoff Automation LLC, North America

Therefore to institute effective Lean Manufacturing, companies will also have to institute Lean Automation in which a key component is the use of Industrial PCs using open technologies to control and monitor production. Traditional control systems using PLCs, Motion Controllers and PC based HMI are being replaced by a single IPC, thereby simplifying the complete controls architecture at a lower cost, with improved flexibility and better performance. The traditional control technologies were designed as stand-alone components when “islands of automation” were an acceptable approach but due to their proprietary backplanes, operating systems and software, they were never designed to use open technologies such as Ethernet, Windows Operating Systems, Visual Basic, IEC 61131-3 programming, or multiple networking communications. To handle modern communications, the traditional PLC approach has been to add-on expensive communication gateways and scanners, plug-in expensive PC modules, with extra software packages and often from third party providers, thereby complicating the total support infrastructure. It is like building a tall building on a weak foundation. It can be done but at quite an expense, and don’t ask for future enhancements!

Based upon Lean Manufacturing's success in creating new approaches to productivity growth, I believe that the Beckhoff New Automation Technology will be a key component in making North American manufacturing companies more successful.