Interview, published in: SPS trade magazine, issue 1+2, 2016, TeDO publishing house

Transcription

1 Interview, published in: SPS trade magazine, issue 1+2, 2016, TeDO publishing house Consistently high service levels Interview - Part 1 At the beginning of the year, the Schmersal Group founded an independent division for machine safety and industrial safety services under the name of tec.nicum. What is the reason for this new business division and who is it aimed at? Jörg Schreiber, Director Strategic Market Development at Schmersal answers this and other questions in the first part of our interview. Mr Schreiber, machine safety services are nothing new for Schmersal. What was the motivation behind setting up a separate business division for these services? Jörg Schreiber: It is true that it is not a new area for Schmersal. We have already pushed ahead with this strategy separately in some countries, i.e. some of our branches had been able to identify a demand for services of this kind at a national level and build up a portfolio. After gathering a few years experience in these decentralised services and carrying out a best practice analysis of national services, the time is now right to establish a group standard in order to be able to offer our international customers services at a consistently high level. You mean that the new business division allows standardisation of these services at an international level? Jörg Schreiber: Exactly. A newly founded team of experts is now the central moderator defining the guidelines. We have proven that these services represent a profitable business division, as we can offer our customers valuable know-how and a complete range of safety technology solutions as an added value. We are now making sure that the services relating to machine safety and industrial safety at Schmersal are the same on an international level, thus establishing a global standard which is also recognisable for our customers by our new and consistent corporate design. In this respect, which were the pioneering countries you mentioned earlier? Jörg Schreiber: At a European level, there have been very positive developments both in Spain and in the United Kingdom. These national companies within the Schmersal Group have been able to build up strong demand for services relating to the standards where machine safety is relevant, for example. They have all put real focus on the end user, not so much on the machine manufacturers themselves, who we address very strongly here in Germany. Beyond Europe, I would also name Brazil and India. In India, we entered the market in 2008 with our own sales organisation which put the subject of services on the agenda at a very early stage. We are now harvesting the fruits of what we sowed back then. Our services interest both the international companies represented in India and also local businesses which need to overcome the market entry barriers for the European Union or other international institutions in order to be successful in the markets. These companies are then turning to us for advice. Who is the new range of services primarily aimed at? Jörg Schreiber: Although the tec.nicum range of services is largely identical on an international basis, who they are targeted at can very much vary. We have defined a total of five target groups: machine manufacturers, machine operators, system integrators, importers and distributors. Each of these target groups has different things to consider, partly as a result of the statutory framework conditions applicable in their division. This means that machine manufacturers are subject to completely different laws to machine operators. But it became clear that end users were becoming our core customers. If the machine manufacturers require information, there is time to train them in a manageable timescale and they can then apply the knowledge gained themselves. Machine operators, who are mostly international companies, generally have various sites all around the world and have to comply with a range of different national regulations - this is often difficult to achieve in a lean organisation with scarce personnel resources. These machine operators are looking for partners who can provide consultancy and services relating to machine safety at a consistent standard of quality around the world and can Jörg Schreiber, Director Strategic Market Development at the Schmersal Group: tec.nicum offers our customers a high level of know-how and a complete package of safety technology services.

2 support, for example, customers in the USA and China with equally professional advice against the backdrop of differing national and regional circumstances. The end users get us to train their personnel on the principle of train the trainer, they can then become the trainer within the company. Our experts can also carry out audits of our customer s machinery to check that the machine safety measures comply with the current statutory requirements. Our customers are often aiming to introduce company-specific group standards in machine safety which are then to be implemented across all production sites around the world, a process we are happy to support by means of training, consultancy and development support. In the modern age of new, transparent media, a global company can no longer afford to ignore safety standards at a production site in one country which it applies in others. Has service within the Schmersal Group been introduced at the same time all over the world or are there different timings at an international level? Jörg Schreiber: Essentially, we started the service portfolio and the marketing of tec. nicum across all core markets around the world on 01 January Although, of course, there are differences in knowledge across the 25 countries in which Schmersal has representatives. To help on this front, we have set up what we are calling a sponsorship scheme, where sponsors are assigned to specific regions to provide support when it is required. Here in Wuppertal, home to the tec. nicum head office, we have installed a core cell who can provide support in these instances. This means we are actually able to offer the new service portfolio all over the world at the same time, in line with the resources available. How do things stand with the qualification of the service team employees and how do you keep your employees at the same level of knowledge across borders? Jörg Schreiber: We are working closely together with TÜV Rheinland on this, by regularly certifying members of the tec.nicum team as Functional Safety Engineers (FSE). This is not a training course, our specialists need to evidence the knowledge they have obtained over a number of years in an examination and are given a certificate if they complete it successfully. These FSEs are working all over the world for tec.nicum. International representatives of the tec.nicum business division at a best practice meeting in Wuppertal. A second element is that the aforementioned core cell acts as a coordination point here in the company headquarters and processes knowledge on a central basis. Among other things, this involves collating and processing the best practice cases in different countries and making this knowledge accessible to other tec.nicum sites via knowledgebases, newsletters, etc. There is also at least one international meeting of specialists every year in order to share the knowledge gathered further. In 2014, we held a best practice meeting with the countries who had been offering services of this kind in order to review the practice applied. After a year, we had translated this knowledge into standard tools. This is another element in keeping the knowledge of our employees at the same level across national borders, as these standard tools are available in the local language via databases.

3 The local employees need only make country or customer-specific changes as required in order to be able to provide the service. This guarantees that the tec.nicum group standard remains the same all over the world. Presumably region-specific characteristics are taken into consideration in the safety standards? Jörg Schreiber: When it comes to region-specific characteristics, the devil is often in the detail. For machine manufacturers, for example, machine and plant safety is well regulated with different norms and directives. There is a requirement for 100 percent compliance. But if you look at it from the operator side, other EU directives apply, with only a minimum level of conditions for which compliance is mandatory. All EU members are responsible for adapting the national standards upwards. These discrepancies need to be identified and the customers informed that there are other regulations alongside the EU directive in their countries. Are machine manufacturers perhaps nervous about carefully planned safety technology because they need to pass on the costs to their end customer and they are frightened this will be detrimental to their position in the competition? Jörg Schreiber: The counterpart to the total cost of ownership is probably the total cost of engineering. It would be interesting to determine what it would cost to retrofit a safety solution. There is no doubt that it is more economical to consider safety technology at the planning stage. Although it looks like the more expensive option, the second variant is definitely more economical at the end of the day. After all, as well as protecting the operator, machine safety also has a second essential objective: process efficiency. Production lines which are safely protected against external influences offer high levels of availability and are much more economical, which is pleasing to the shareholders. academy consulting engineering integration Seminars Customer-specific training Inhouse-training Presentations Training centre Risk assessment Risk assessment (HSE) Lockout / Tagout CE conformity assessment Evaluation of machines and production lines Reports ATEX and hygiene Consultancy Technical planning and project management Validation PLC programming CAD and CAE Design of safety equipment and fences Laboratory tests and measurements Modernisation of machines Technical planning Installation Conversion / Retrofit Machine safety maintenance Design Images: K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co. KG, Wuppertal The tec.nicum service portfolio incorporates four columns: tec.nicum academy (training), tec.nicum consulting (consultancy services), tec.nicum engineering (technical planning) and tec.nicum integration (execution and implementation). tec.nicum, Wuppertal Tel.: mhahmann@schmersal.com

4 Interview with Jörg Schreiber, Schmersal (part 2) Manufacturer-neutral safety service portfolio Interview - Part 2 In the second part of our interview, Jörg Schreiber, Director Strategic Market Development at Schmersal, explains the four pillars of the new service division in detail. He also passes on his experience as to where there is the greatest demand for information on machine safety among machine manufacturers and operators and provides arguments as to why these two target groups are at the very top of the priority list. The newly created tec.nicum is based on four pillars. What are these and what do they cover? Jörg Schreiber: We founded tec.nicum as a training centre for the German-speaking countries back in Over and above this training, we are now providing consultancy and planning, plus the specific implementation of safety technology solutions, if required. We wanted specifically to continue to use the tec.nicum name and have now established it as an umbrella brand. What was the training division is now called the tec.nicum academy. In the training division, we aim to provide our customers with basic knowledge on machine safety, highlight current issues and give background information about new developments, which are often legal in nature. It can happen that, during training, customers recognise that their own machinery could do with optimisation in terms of safety technology. And, of course, we can help there too. This is also a transition to pillar number 2, tec. nicum consulting. Here, we offer consultancy services, generally on an on-site basis for the customer. For example, we carry out an inspection of the machines and then submit a quotation for the resulting services, e.g. a risk assessment of an application or a machine audit of a single machine, a fleet of machines or a process chain.as a rule, the result is a documentation with recommended steps which our customer can use as a basis for decisions on how the proposed optimisations can actually be implemented. From this point, some customers sail alone if they have enough resources in-house to implement the recommended measures. But it is often the case that a customer - either immediately or at a later date - comes back to us for design services for the projects or improvement areas suggested. This is then the third pillar of our services, tec.nicum engineering. Depending on the application, we take over the technical configuration, the validation of safety functions in accordance with ISO , the retrofitting of existing machines and systems and any measurements and technical inspections. At the end, the customer is given a list of products required to improve machine safety for its equipment and it can then order and install these components. However, if it is not able to undertake the implementation and assembly itself, we are happy to take over the installation and integration of the hardware components into its systems - represented by the fourth pillar, tec.nicum integration. Schmersal training is not only provided centrally at the company headquarters in Wuppertal but also at up to 15 different sites across Germany. Does the new range of services focus mainly on Schmersal products, or is it providerneutral in respect to the solutions to be integrated into the relevant machines? Jörg Schreiber: We have made it our policy to remain manufacturer-neutral for the first two pillars. This clearly sets us apart from oth-

5 er providers of similar services. As of the third pillar, engineering, the customer needs to take a stand and let us know which manufacturer it prefers. But even if it decides to go with products which are not made by Schmersal, which would obviously disappoint us, we would still continue to provide our services. This makes it clear that tec.nicum is an independent business division whose services are genuinely provided on a manufacturer-neutral basis. What does the academy training programme look like? Are the courses the same for everyone or design on a customer-specific basis? Jörg Schreiber: Of course, the academy has a few standard subjects I would describe as machine safety basics and which form a solid foundation year on year. But we also include hot topics in the range all the time. We regularly get together and discuss internally what the current issues are, e.g. the new operational safety ordinance which has been in force for a few months, or the subject of DIN14119 Monitoring safety doors on machines. We also organise the training not only centrally here in Wuppertal but also at our other sites and as tec.nicum on tour, where we offer training on specific core subjects at ten to Schmersal believes that it is more economical to consider safety at the plant planning stage. 15 neutral sites across the country. In-house seminars are also becoming increasingly popular with customers. These allow us to offer subject-specific training on the state-of-the-art or industry specific training, for the food and beverages industry or the packaging industry, for example. Based on your experience from the last few years: among machine manufacturers and operators, where do you see the greatest demand for information on machine safety? Or, to put it another way: during your everyday work, do you get the impression that the safety solutions installed are failing to be effective because key principles were not taken into consideration during installation? Jörg Schreiber: We have many leading customers who have incorporated safety well and considered the safety strategy of their machinery from the very first pencil sketches. In these cases, the safety chain - i.e. the sensors and interlocks combined with safe analysis - have already been incorporated in an exemplary fashion. But unfortunately that is not the norm. There are also machine manufacturers who only consider safety at the very end of their design chain. The plants are often already completed and the safety technology is then, to put it crudely, bodged after the fact. It is not rare for use to be confronted with machine importers who have got what they feel to be a bargain from the Far East, for example, and bought a machining station for a good price. They then come across serious problems, sometimes with customs, sometimes technical and sometimes relating to CE certification, e.g. because of missing or incomplete documentation. Then we often have to jump into the breech like the fire brigade and see whether we can still rescue the introduction of the machine. If machine safety is not planned from the beginning, this means not only missing out on lots of opportunities with respect to operating personnel and manipulation protection. With respect to the ever-present issue of Industry 4.0, a carefully planned safety chain can create competitive advantages which are wasted if the system is installed after the fact. Retrofitted systems are, as a rule, less efficient thank safety technology solutions implemented in the design from the outset. Are machine manufacturers perhaps nervous about carefully planned safety technology because they need to pass on the costs to their end customer and they are frightened this will be detrimental to their position in the competition? Jörg Schreiber: The counterpart to the total cost of ownership is probably the total cost of engineering. It would be interesting to determine what it would cost to retrofit a safety solution. There is no doubt that it is more economical to consider safety technology at the plant planning stage. Although it looks like the more expensive option, the second variant is definitely more economical at the end of the day. After all, as well as protecting the operator, machine safety also has another essential objective: process efficiency. Production lines which are safely protected against external influences offer high levels of availability and are much more economical, which is pleasing to those involved. Images: K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co. KG, Wuppertal tec.nicum, Wuppertal Tel.: mhahmann@schmersal.com