Rockwell Automation wins gold

Rockwell Automation’s Asia Pacific Business Centre (APBC) has been presented Gold at the 2016 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. The Award for Excellence in the category of Innovation in Manufacturing Industries recognises the success of the APBC in achieving optimal performance and profitability through deploying The Connected Enterprise.

The Stevie Awards are considered to be the world’s premier business honours, conferring recognition for achievement in the workplace over the past 14 years in programs such as The International Business Awards and The American Business Awards. This year’s awards attracted more than 600 entries from 22 countries across Asia Pacific, with a global panel of over 50 executives judging the submissions.

“We are honoured to receive this prestigious award. Our success in innovation in the manufacturing industry is attributed to the quality of the manufacturing team at our Asia Pacific Business Centre in Singapore,” said Darryl Kaufmann, manager marketing and market access.

After years of restructuring its facilities, processes and ecosystem, Rockwell Automation has now completed its company-wide journey to deploy The Connected Enterprise. This includes the implementation of its APBC design, engineering, R&D, sourcing, manufacturing, logistics and quality-control facility — resulting in prestigious regional and worldwide accolades.

“Rockwell Automation penned ‘The Connected Enterprise’ to describe the convergence of plant-floor operations technology (OT) with enterprise-based information technology (IT). At the same time new technologies — such as smart assets, scalable computing, the cloud, mobility, data analytics and cybersecurity — are providing valuable platforms for manufacturers to harness and safeguard these up-to-the-minute insights and supply chains,” said Co Gia Nguyen, vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific Business Centre, Rockwell Automation.

Established in 2005, APBC currently employs over 500 people and produces more than 600 built-to-stock SKUs annually in its 139,000 square-foot complex. Prior to executing The Connected Enterprise, the centre was challenged with manual reporting from countless data points, records, devices and sites. Divergent networks lacked a common, standard and secure industrial protocol, resulting in ineffective process management, inaccuracies, delays and lack of integration between the plant floor and enterprise teams.

To expand market share and remain competitive, APBC was pressured to simplify complexities and abolish inefficiencies by shortening customer response time and enhancing ERP systems, optimising MES reports, improving supply-chain execution, and promoting collaboration amongst executives, engineers, vendors and customers.

“By embracing The Connected Enterprise, manufacturers hold the key to faster decision-making, enhanced productivity for greater competitiveness and, ultimately, maximised business value,” said Pit Wee Yeoh, director manufacturing, Asia Pacific, Rockwell Automation. “At APBC, we achieved measurable results. We cut inventory from 115 to 70 days and shrank capital expenditures by 20% per year. Our on-time delivery improved from the low 90s to 99% and our supplier lead times went down by 25% as well. At the same time, we reduced quality defects by 50%. Overall, APBC increased annual productivity by 4–5%.”