[The following advertorial appeared in the PACE 60th anniversary November 2013 special issue. The Process Instrumentation section was supported by Endress+Hauser.]
For 12 years Chris Gailer was Managing Director of Endress+Hauser's agency in New Zealand.
In January 2011 he took over as Managing Director of Endress+Hauser Australia. Here he outlines the key drivers behind the company's continued success.
Beginnings
Endress+Hauser started off as a level instrumentation company in Germany in 1953, so like PACE, this is also our sixtieth year of operation.
The company quickly added to its portfolio and subsequently included flow and analytical instrumentation to the basket as well as recording and data logging, and then pressure and temperature measurement.
We now have a complete instrumentation portfolio, all developed and manufactured by Endress+Hauser.
Our biggest selling product line, both here and globally is flow instrumentation. We're number one in the world with magnetic flow meters and number two in Coriolis flow meters.
We also supply Vortex and Thermal mass flow meters however of particular interest to the Australian market are Ultrasonic Gas Flow meters for the CSG industry.
Recent major investments have been more in the analytical area. So where we have developed traditional measurements of analytics with pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen and turbidity, we are now advancing more into the analyser arena. We also provide value added services with our calibration rigs, onsite audits and software.
Once the user has completed an audit, our web based asset management system W@M, allows them to look up online all the details pertaining to that instrument, including documentation, spares parts and calibration data.
In fact every instrument we have manufactured since the year 2000 is now entered into a common equipment record allowing every customer to access full data just by entering the serial number or scanning the QR code with your smartphone.
Endress+Hauser aren't in the market of providing complete control systems so we have formed strategic alliances with companies such as Rockwell.
But we are happy to work with anybody according to our customer's requests. Integration with control systems from other manufactures is obviously key so we have our own integration laboratory called 'System World' to prove to customers that we can interface to their preferred control system.
Future direction
When we launched products in the past, most of the testing was based around the hardware. Now, the longest testing phases involve the software. It's ironic that it's relatively complicated to make our instruments simple to use for everybody.
I like to compare product development to building a house: the plumbing is still pretty similar to what it was 50 years ago, but we all know that the electrics have evolved tremendously.
As Klaus Endress says, we have a secure future in instrumentation for at least another 100 years. As a company we try to avoid boom and bust – our motto is sustainable growth.
With steady growth, we will be able to continue to support all our customers and at the same time develop new markets.
As a group, we are very strong in chemicals, pharmaceuticals and also food and beverage. In fact, we have the highest market share in the food and beverage industry in Australia based on our hygienic instrumentation campaign.
Our other focus industries in Australia are Water and Wastewater, Mining and Oil & Gas. We see a lot of our future growth and product development coming from Oil & Gas.
Endress+Hauser recently signed an Enterprise Frame Agreement with Shell, nominating us as their preferred supplier, which enables us to further develop instruments suited to the specific needs of that industry. Oil & Gas will continue to be a big focus going into the future.
Water is always an area of interest and we're very well set up in that area thanks to a best fit product range. Water quality monitoring is becoming more and more important which is why investments have been made in analysers and other environmental areas.
Recycling of waste water is going to become a bigger topic in the years ahead. Also, our population is ageing and this gives us other opportunities in pharmaceuticals and special foods to provide the elderly a high quality of life.
Energy management is another big topic as every kilowatt you save is one you don't have to generate. An interesting trend in biotechnology is the emergence of disposable sensors.
Endress+Hauser has always prided itself in building long lasting sensors. But with the new biotech reactors, sensors are 'use once and throw away' and requires an entirely new product range as we become more involved in this market.
We have recently realised we have to make investments in sectors where we don't have the long term expertise. An example is SpectraSensors which we purchased last year.
Their products monitor moisture in pipelines using tuneable diode laser technology. There are several SpectraSensors analysers already in Australia which are used to measure moisture content in Coal Seam gas pipelines.
USPs
Endress+Hauser is the world's largest privately owned instrumentation company. There's a family charter which states that the company will not be sold and this family ownership gives us stability and a clear direction.
Another bonus is we don't have shareholders requesting dividends, meaning the company can reinvest a lot more into R&D, which is important for us, as the company prides itself on innovation and technology.
These family values run through every Endress+Hauser company and our people make the difference.
I'd love to say that we have the best technology, and we do in a lot of areas. Amongst all the instrumentation companies, we hold the most active patents.
However the customer's perception is that products are becoming more similar every day. It's now a pretty crowded market so differentiation is becoming a challenge. Our sales team now find it difficult to go to a customer and say our instruments are made in Switzerland and are of a higher quality than somebody else's.
So we are promoting other differentiators, such as our web enabled asset management (W@M) and our common equipment record. We also promote our value added services and try to provide the customer with the best on-going support for the complete lifecycle of the instrument.
Ultimately we want to deliver outstanding value to our customers and not necessarily focus on being number one because that doesn't mean a hell of a lot, especially if you have to make compromises along the way.
Our difference, we feel, is in our tooling software and the support we are able to offer. How easy is it to maintain your product? How easy is it to calibrate? How easy is it to verify in the field? Here's where we are different.
Winning products
In terms of products, our diverse range of Coriolis meters with a straight-through free draining design and immunity to vibration is in a class of its own.
Time-of-Flight instruments – radar and guided radar – are also a very big portion of our portfolio. We are also the world's leading supplier of pH electrodes and in head temperature transmitters.
In terms of concepts I need to include our unparalleled two-wire platform, which is key part of our product offering and available across our whole range of products including all of our flow technologies.
Being 4-20 mA, there is no need for an external power supply and this offers a huge advantage and is really where we are leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.
Our analytical product range uses a digital sensor technology called Memosens which is short for memory sensor. As the name suggests the sensor stores the calibration and diagnostic data internally and digitally sends this information to the transmitter.
The sensors achieve this digital data transmission through inductive coupling. This has enormous advantages over traditional analogue systems which use expensive high impedance coaxial cable that is highly susceptible to moisture ingress, EMC interferences and potential matching issues.
Our Memosens platform can be used together with an 8-channel transmitter; you just plug in whatever sensor you like and the transmitter recognises it and uploads the information.
So to summarise I have to agree with Klaus Endress, that the future is looking very bright for Endress+Hauser for the next 100 years.