A Hungarian centre of excellence NI Hungary

Since 1976, National Instruments has equipped engineers and scientists with tools that accelerate productivity, innovation and discovery. NI’s reputation as an industry leader is built on proven technology, visionary leadership and consistent financial and organic growth.

National Instruments provides engineers and scientists with an integrated software and hardware platform that accelerates the design and implementation of any system that needs measurement and control. Customers use this platform to develop and test measurement, control and embedded systems in industry, from design to production, in advanced research and in teaching engineering and science.

The Austin-based (Texas, USA) company opened its new plant in Debrecen, Hungary, in 2001. This subsidiary company that focused only on hardware production in the very beginning, now has more than 1000 employees working in 13 different departments including legal, finance, HR, IT and engineering. These departments provide support for not only European but also global teams and projects. With this headcount, NI Hungary is the second biggest employer in Debrecen/fourth biggest employer in Hajdú-Bihar county. More than 600 people work directly on the production field and 60 employees are engaged in Research and development activities in four different engineering departments (ICT and

FVT process engineering, calibration software engineering, sustaining engineering).

The typical NI approach is to make products in a high-mix, low volume process. ninety-five per cent of the orders received for products are manufactured at NI Hungary. Defective components are repaired at the plant, and multiple calibration services are also available.

Dr László Ábrahám has been the general manager of NI Hungary since the opening in 2001. Last year, in 2011, the Debrecen based plant celebrated its 10-year anniversary as well as commemorating the 35th anniversary of the global company. Mr Ábrahám’s 10-year governance shows the stability of the company – there were no requirements for additional capital input and the company also maintained its relationships with all its partners. According to a survey carried out in 2010, NI Hungary is the 64th highest earning company in Hungary. The company’s skilled and efficient workforce and their hard-working contribution to the business activities enabled NI to achieve global success. Award winning, innovative products

The Hungarian plant is a major player in the measurement, control, embedded systems and graphical design industry. Year by year it expands its product range with hundreds of innovations. Currently it produces 2500 different kinds of products – introducing two new ones daily. In the spring of 2011, the company’s myDAQ personal laboratory tool, received two different Innovation Awards: the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce Award of 2010 and the Public Foundation Award

for Industry Progress. Today nearly 30 Hungarian universities use the myDAQ tool because this instrument makes the education effective and more practical. MyDAQ’s sales have been increasing dynamically – in Hungary and also in foreign markets.

The company’s core value system includes the aim of continuous improvement, which is why NI works hard on innovation. Many multiple products are under development which will be the top of the line in their own segments. Besides NI’s hardware products, one of the main software solutions, LabVIEW, is also in the lead in innovation among other product family ranges. LabVIEW is a graphical programming environment used by millions of engineers and scientists to develop sophisticated measurement, test and control systems using intuitive graphical icons and wires that resemble a flowchart. It offers unrivalled integration with thousands of hardware devices and provides hundreds of built-in libraries for advanced analysis and data visualisation – all for creating virtual instrumentation. The LabVIEW platform is scalable across multiple targets and OSs, and since its introduction in 1986, it has become an industry leader.

Sustaining growth despite recession

In 2009 NI Hungary launched more products than ever and has even managed to gain some benefit from the recession by implementing plant-wide innovation

with all available engineering, technician and operator capacity and with the aid of Kaizen and Lean tools. As a result of these activities, NI Hungary reached nearly 15-20 per cent efficiency growth in production. 99.5 per cent of products are being distributed in foreign markets which helps to maintain competitiveness. As part of the “New Hungary Development Plan” Government Fund, NI had the opportunity to start working on two new production lines (currently eight lines are operated) that created 30 new jobs.

NI believes that investing in its employees enables it to achieve higher efficiency in the long term. NI hires the best and brightest people, maintains an open and innovative corporate culture and empowers employees to progress their careers with the company. It invests 16 per cent of its profits in research and development. This approach has enabled the company to compete in the medication industry so that they can manufacture front-ranked products.

Based on this strategy NI Hungary is aiming to become a centre of excellence and with this key strength hopes to reach its next goal of achieving a turnover of USD 2 billion by 2020.

National Instruments’ technology leadership stems not only from the products it makes but also from who they are and how they operate. The company’s collaborative, entrepreneurial corporate culture spurs innovation in every area of the business, and a deep commitment to corporate responsibility guides its focus on issues critical to the success of key stakeholders and society. The National Instruments’ 100-year Plan, NI has become a technology pioneer by investing in not only products but also in the people who make them. n