Manufacturing automation in practice: TE Connectivity’s technology transformation
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TE Connectivity: Transforming manufacturing WRITTEN BY
JOHN O’HANLON PRODUCED BY
TOM VENTURO
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TE CONNECTIVITY
The automation of manufacturing processes is driving the rapid development of the products of tomorrow: Roberto Lu, Vice President – Technology: Automation Manufacturing, Global Operations, explains how…
B
ack in 1941, Aircraft Marine Products (AMP) was founded, as so many companies were, as part of the technical leap
forward catalyzed by war. The need for rapid 04
development and deployment of new ships and aircraft spelt the death of labor intensive manufacturing practices such as manual soldering of electrical connections, and AMP – which would later become TE Connectivity – established itself on its ability to develop solderless connectors that could be changed quickly but without losing the ability to pass current reliably in demanding conditions. 78 years on, this market has transformed very much to TE Connectivity’s advantage. The company is still adding value at the interface between devices and solving the problems presented at those interfaces. Electronics are ubiquitous. Domestic appliances, automotive, aerospace, energy, manufacturing, medical devices and more all call for specialized and smart connectors to enable transformations through the internet of
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“ Our production today is all about automation and semi-automation” — Roberto Lu, VP Technology, TE Connectivity
things (IoT), machine learning (ML), automation and robotics. This places TE Connectivity firmly among the essential global companies that most people haven’t heard of, sitting behind the label on your smartphone, your transportation, all of your internet activity and every experience you have. It develops and manufactures switches, cable assemblies, relays, antennae and many more product categories as well as critical connection solutions for fiber optics. Today the company employs 80,000
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people, makes 220bn products a year, achieved sales of $14bn in 2018 and has 130 manufacturing and engineering centers around the world. AMP was acquired by Tyco International in 1999, becoming part of Tyco Electronics in a 2007 restructure. In 2011, however, it rebranded itself as TE Connectivity partly to reflect its approach to the market and partly to avoid confusion with other Tyco companies. This happened under the leadership of Tom Lynch, CEO from 2006 until 2017 and now Chair of the Board. Attracting talent was an important part of the former Motorola CFO’s strategy, as was shown in 2011
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘ENGINEERING THE FUTURE’ 07 when he reached out to a high-flying
about the company at the time. I was
Boeing executive to fill the newly
attracted by the breadth of TE’s global
created job of Vice President –
reach and the realization that it is
Technology: Automation Manufactur-
present wherever there is a signal –
ing, Global Operations.
whenever you call someone you are going through TE products!”
CAPTIVATED BY CONNECTIVITY
Having no predecessors, at first Lu
What persuaded Roberto Lu to take on
worked on his own and without a budg-
this challenge? “Tom had brought in
et. “I travelled extensively in the first
Rob Shaddock as CTO from Motorola:
weeks and I was amazed at the number
they saw they needed someone to run
of opportunities that I saw to contrib-
manufacturing technology so they
ute on the manufacturing technology
created my job. I hadn’t planned to
side,” he explains. As a part of the
leave Boeing, but I was really captivat-
global corporate headquarters
ed by TE, though I didn’t know much
organization, reporting to the CEO w w w.te .c o m/u s a -en
TE CONNECTIVITY
08 through the head of operations, Lu’s responsibility covers all the TE
acronym stands for automation!” This nimble approach typifies the
segments: Communications, Trans-
company and its leadership, he
portation and Industrial. Today he has
continues. “Back in 2012 it was quite
a team of 50 engineers located in the
visionary of the company to see that
USA, Mexico, Europe and China but
automation was going to be such a big
his organization had to be built from
deal. We have to give this credit to our
scratch. “In March 2012 I inherited a
leaders because who can estimate
small team and was allocated a budget
what is going to happen a few years
– my boss asked me what I wanted to
down the road? That is another reason
call it, so I said AMT. At the time that
that I really like this company: the
stood for advanced manufacturing
leaders are not only interested in this
technology but we rethought that,
quarter’s performance on the stock
taking into account the rapid growth of
exchange market but also looking
automation, and now the A in the
forward years down the road to see
where we’ll be in the long term.” You can buy TE products across the
stage to solve connectivity issues before the product is made. Team
counter or even online through
members from TE Connectivity work
distributors or the company’s website.
full time at the engineering and
However, most of TE’s business
production facilities of nearly all
comes from engagement with OEMs
of the world’s global auto and aircraft
with whom the company works closely
makers. There’s also a high percent-
to develop solutions for next-genera-
age of TE content within the critical
tion products, right from the concept
control functions that maintain the
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Roberto Lu, Vice President – Technology: Automation Manufacturing, Global Operations TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL) is a $14bn global industrial technology leader. TE connectivity and sensor solutions are essential in today’s increasingly connected world. TE collaborates with engineers to transform their concepts into creations – redefining what’s possible using intelligent, efficient and high performing TE products and solutions proven in harsh environments. He works closely with the company’s manufacturing and operation leaders to advance TE’s overall manufacturing capabilities in automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. He charters TE’s global manufacturing technology strategies and roadmaps, which guide the company’s manufacturing technologies, initiatives, and the overall development of new manufacturing processes. Manufacturing technologies from his team reach more than 102 TE factories in EMEA, the Americas and Asia.
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TE CONNECTIVITY
$14bn Approximate revenue
2004
Year founded
80,000
Approximate number of employees 10
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“ We have 8,000 engineers working on connectivity solutions” — Roberto Lu, VP Technology, TE Connectivity
speed and stability of the 350+ kph Beijing to Shanghai high speed train link, Lu says. It’s worth noting that TE Connectivity is among the biggest foreign employers in China, where it has more than 2,000 engineers working on product research and manufacturing development. The competitive advantage of vertical integration can’t be overstressed. A major transportation organization, for example, wanted connectivity solutions to deliver fast streaming of media content. Weight reduction and efficient operation were key criteria. “They came to me with the next question: what about manufacturing technology and were we going to manufacture in a low cost location with a lot of manual labor? I could assure them that we have 11 patents on this product family manufacturing technology. We own it. Our production today is all about flexible precision automation and semi-automation. Our customer can rest assured that TE can not only produce the parts to the satisfaction of the customer but that we have our manufacturing technology in-house and they have access to our technical team members including myself!” w w w.te .c o m/u s a -en
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INNOVATE AND AUTOMATE As the leader of a global center of excellence in assembly automation, including manufacture and assembly, innovation is important to Lu. “We must lead with the next ready-to-deploy technology otherwise the innovation pipeline runs dry, and that is bad business. The opportunities presented by IoT are taking us in many directions. At our engineering centers we have top grade engineers developing innovations that will be needed in transportation, for example, as driverless cars 14
and even ships and aircraft become a reality. We have 8,000+ engineers working on those connectivity and sensing solutions. Out in the field their concern is to build customized solutions for major connectivity platforms, and work on the production floor to implement these solutions.” As we have seen, the IP the company possesses aids the customization of solutions – once a successful implementation has been established at one site, it will be rolled out at multiple sites, saving time and money. On the manufacturing side, his team is constantly working on improving performance and finding new solu-
tions: one of the biggest challenges (and market opportunities) is presented by high-speed communications. In this field alone, he says, TE holds more than 200 global patents. Here automation has been the key. “In many product categories we are achieving over 99% first-time-right pass rates. There’s no way that can be achieved through manual processes, and our customers really appreciate that reliability. We have developed spatial intelligence machine learning capability for a variety of our products, with at least 18 deployments across sites of various business units. We use artificial intelligence to learn what is done right and what is not: there’s deep learning behind our processes and our inspections to increase our speed and quality.” In 2011, Roberto started to draw up technology roadmaps to chart forward development, and today he and his team continue to use this approach. A year later, with the support of Rob Shaddock and Tom Lynch, he introduced TE Connectivity to the global RoboCup competition. With so much talent residing in its engineers, dispersed as they are, it was necessary to find collaborative routes to w w w.te .c o m/u s a -en
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innovation. “Innovation is a team sport,
NEVER-SATISFIED CURIOSITY
and it’s everybody’s job,” said Rob
One of Lu’s great strengths is his
Shaddock, former CTO and Lu’s boss
desire to learn. Since bagging his first
at the time. Teams participating in
degree in 1985 at Taiwan he gained
RoboCup use vision-guided robots to
four more advanced degrees from
improve TE production processes and
American universities including a
provide significant ROI. Lu’s AMT team
doctorate in industrial engineering.
runs robotics courses for the partici-
There’s continuity from his work at the
pating team members, training them in
Boeing Company, where he worked for
working with new applications such as
over 13 years, and his present role in
collaborative robotics. The first
that they both involved manufacturing
competition took place in 2012 and it
technology research and development
has run annually ever since.
– though the transition was not an
obvious one. “I was honored to work alongside so many innovators at Boeing and was one of the first few engineers working on the Boeing 787 in 1999. We had to develop our internal processes because on something like that there’s nobody you can ask!” Involvement with something as high profile as the 787 Dreamliner, and the experience of working at Boeing, where they say ‘The sky is not the limit – it is Boeing’s playground’ was “awesome”, according to Lu. “In my Boeing days I was very fortunate to have outstanding leaders and managers who inspired me.” The company became his own playground, he
“ Insatiable curiosity became a drive for me to seize every opportunity to contribute to Boeing locations globally” — Roberto Lu, VP Technology, TE Connectivity
admits. Poring over the internal maps of Boeing’s many locations he set himself the task of getting into every building on every manufacturing and fabrication site and finding out what happens there. A tall order, but he managed to do them all bar one. “Insatiable curiosity you may say, but that curiosity became a drive for me to seize every opportunity to contribute to Boeing locations globally.” He had every expectation of retiring as a senior Boeing Fellow when he was approached by Tom Lynch, who w w w.te .c o m/u s a -en
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he regards as the model of an inspirational leader. Perhaps he recognizes a
capabilities than we know.” In 2015 at a global leadership event
kindred drive and curiosity in a
for the top echelon of the company Lu
corporate finance leader prepared to
was listening to a dinner presentation
leave his dream job as CFO at
when he heard a story unfolding that
Motorola to turn around the reputation
was rather like his own. “I realized that
of Tyco electronics. “It’s Tom who
this was actually my story: then my
has made TE Connectivity the really
name was announced and I had to
strong performance company it is
quickly gulp down my food and go up
today. He likes to inspire everyone,
on the stage to be presented with a
with the message that we have better
black leather jacket! The jacket is like
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a pilot’s jacket – it means you are a
made more mistakes than I would like
solo flyer, and it is a great honor, rather
to admit to! The key thing was that
like a lifetime achievement.”
I recognized them and accepted they
Despite this and many more achieve-
were part of my growth.”
ments, like the publication of his book on ASCL models in production engineering, Lu is refreshingly ready to admit he doesn’t know it all. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes as long as you learn from them, he says. “I am thankful to TE Connectivity because I have w w w.te .c o m/u s a -en
TE Connectivity www.te.com/usa-en