THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Speed key to IoT usage Rockwell Automation is one of the big players in the Internet of Things (IoT) space in Australia. Food & Beverage Industry News talks to newly appointed regional vice president, Scott Wooldridge, about the IoT and why it’s important to Australia’s food processing industry.
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cott Wooldridge has spent most of his career in the automation space, and he knows that now more than ever, automation’s time has come. Over the past 40 years many factories have implemented automation in all its various forms. However, over that time, the main driver was saving on labour costs. And if companies didn’t automate, they took their manufacturing business where labour was not only abundant, but cheap. And while automation hasn’t always worked – the Australian car industry being one example – the industrialised world is now entering a new phase, which is being headed by the IoT and Industry 4.0. As the regional vice-president of Rockwell Automation, Wooldridge’s brief covers Australasia, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Rockwell Automation has always been one of the big players in the Australasian market, but now it’s time for the American-based automation giant to spread it wings into the ever-increasing lucrative market to Australia’s north. This is a challenge that Wooldridge,
and the company, are up for. “When it comes to our traditional controller space – motion control, PLCs, HDMI, networking – we have large market share, particularly in Australia,” he said. “Less so in the other countries in Asia Pacific. We see huge opportunities for us in these other countries when it comes to our core business. We would be the market leader in Australia and New Zealand, but we have much different competition in Asia. There,
product solutions and offerings that are emerging quickly, we can work with agility and share those areas of expertise.” According to Wooldridge, there is a misnomer that Asia, as a whole, is an emerging market. “You look at China, and some people call it an emerging market, but it is the second largest in the world now. It’s definitely emerged,” he said. “We do see other markets in the region – Vietnam for example –
"Asia is a region that we are looking at working closely with and collaborating together to be able to exchange resources and best practices across those countries." we’ve got some home-grown Asia Pacific manufacturers like Omron, Yokogawa and Mitsubishi that have grown up in the region. However, we have differentiated offers in those markets, which is very important. “Asia is a region that we are looking at working closely with and collaborating together to be able to exchange resources and best practices across those countries. Particularly on some of our newer
Bottling plants need to keep up with automation trends to stay competitive. 22 Food&Beverage Industry News | September 2019 | www.foodmag.com.au
that are coming from a low base. It is quickly developing a manufacturing base.” He thinks quality is an issue in the food and beverage industry when it comes to products from China, which has been to Australia’s advantage. He said Australia is seen as a high-quality food bowl into China and its emerged middle class has created a huge demand. “We can see it in wine exports,
Rockwell Automation’s regional vicepresident for APAC, Scott Wooldridge. for example. We can see it in the dairy products and baby powder, where they have confidence in our quality and they see Australian products as a luxury brand, which is a good thing,” he said. “That’s where we want to be positioned. We don’t want to be a mass market provider. We can tap into the top 10 per cent in China, which is still 150 million people – seven times our population and they are happy to pay a premium
