At the International Fluid Power Exhibition, Birmingham, Steve Bangs, Managing Director, of SMC Pneumatics (UK) Ltd, disclosed that the SMC Corporation of Japan have awarded the Milton Keynes based, UK subsidiary, the accolade of becoming the site for the company's new European Technical Centre with an approximate resource investment of around £4 million over the next 2-3 years. The SMC Corporation is globally expanding its Research and Development capability in Tsukuba, Japan, the present eight storey facility, currently housing around 750 engineers, is being mirrored by a second, identical, building which is currently under construction. This will be complete and fully functional by the end of this year.
Under the control of the Tsukuba facility, new Technical/R and D Centres based in Europe (UK) and the USA, will continue to support SMC's policy of supplying the exact product requirements of each and every customer.
Up until now SMC Japan's product development has been aimed predominantly at the requirements of the Japanese domestic market.
However, since sales outside Japan are now representing approximately 50% of the company's global turnover - the need to include the requirements of all world zones in all future developments is recognised.
By decentralising Research and Development it enables the company to ensure products conform to all standards, demanded throughout the world, and to provide a faster response to special products requested by the many industries therein.
Each centre will design and consult all new product development will remain customer driven, globally.
In the UK, SMC's European Technical Centre will be housed within the current (Phase 1 of 3) Milton Keynes site (see photograph) 2000 square metres will be allocated to factory space (400 square metres will incorporate a state-of-art Life Test laboratory) and approximately 1000 square metres will be dedicated to offices.
Staffing will consist initially of ten Japanese engineers, specialising in the major product groups (including electric actuators), eight European engineers (to provide seamless communication with the other European subsidiaries) and five UK engineers.
Staff levels are forecast to rise to approximately 80 by April 2001, with the majority recruited from the UK, and double that number over the next 2-3 years.
Why did the SMC Corporation choose the UK site for this important stage in the company's development?
1) The subsidiary has enjoyed considerable success, growth and market share within the UK.
2) The extended facilities on the Crownhill site will more than incorporate the ambitious plans for the Technical Centre.
3) The accepted quality of UK engineering expertise.
4) English is the second language of Japan, which will greatly assist in communication.
In essence, customers throughout Europe will benefit from closer contact with engineering for new and specialist product development In addition, this year heralds the introduction of SMC's Best Pneumatics Catalogues five volumes containing over 9000 pages of the company's products.
This ties in with the activities of the European Technical Centre, whereby the engineers will give close support introducing a vast array of product new to the UK market.
This opens the full scope of all the corporations products to UK customers, far beyond those contained in the existing UK "core" catalogue which is now considered as too restrictive.
To ensure service levels are maintained with this increase in product portfolio, SMC UK will extend, dramatically, the volume of products locally assembled or configured.
The ETC will assist SMC UK personnel with the initial production set-up for this wide range of product additions.
This commitment to Research and Development demonstrates the SMC Corporation's philosophy of leading the industry, re-enforcing its position as the world's number one manufacturer of pneumatics and associated products.