Shi Bifu, Executive Vice President Of ABB Group: The Future Of Robots Is Bright.

ABB's robot factory in Shanghai has a beautiful name Cambridge. Although this Cambridge is not Xu Zhimo's gentle wave of British Cambridge, it also has the charm of Jiangnan Water Village.

May 13th is the Asia cooperation day of ABB automation division this year. In front of the window, all kinds of ABB robots work hard in the hall of the first floor of the factory. The detection robot uses a camera like "eye" to detect whether there are cracks in the door, and every time the neck is twisted, a neat metal sound can be produced. Opposite to it, a small robot with a small hand and feet is playing a game of assorted dish with the viewing customers. Every time they win, they will make a loud whistle. Dozens of robots in the whole field act together to let visitors enjoy the unique audio-visual enjoyment of industrial civilization.

Since its entry into the ABB group as executive vice president in 2005, whether it was in 2006 in the global robotics business division or at the end of 2009, the automation business department reorganized, Shi Bifu (Ulrich Spiesshofer) witnessed the automation business step by step closer to the market and customers. The head of the discrete automation and motion control business department of the world's top 500 company has the identity of a university business management lecturer and consulting partner. It is obviously very good at sharing ABB's concept of "being based on China, serving China and facing the world" to customers and media.

Business Week: ABB has made many adjustments to the automation business. The most important one is to move the global robot business headquarters in Detroit to Shanghai in 2006. How do you evaluate the effect of this adjustment? China has now become the world's largest auto market. How much does it account for in the ABB's robotics business?

Shi Bifu: my biggest feeling now is that this decision is too late. If I can come back again, I hope we can move our business center to China and the Asia Pacific market earlier.

Since the robot business headquarters moved to Shanghai, the confidence of Chinese employees has been greatly improved. At the same time, we have received more support from group headquarters. For example, when we decided to move our factory from Shanghai Waigaoqiao to Cambridge in 2008, we got a lot of investment from the group. The factory you are visiting now officially opened in April 2009. It is the most efficient and modern robot factory in ABB world.

We are working on robot manufacturing and R & D in China. Since its establishment in 2005, our R & D team has 75 people, and they have achieved a lot. For example, the IRB 120 China dragon, which was independently developed last year, is a very core ABB robot product, which is a robot for food and electronic industry. Of course, this is just the beginning. In the fourth quarter of this year, we will introduce a local research and development robot specializing in stacking work.

With regard to the market distribution of ABB robots, we now sell more robots in the non automotive industry than those sold in the automotive industry. The automotive industry is a traditional field of heavy use of robots, but now we are gradually seeing the demand for robots in the non automotive industry and other general manufacturing industries. For example, 300 partners participated in our Asian Partnership day this year. Most of them are not auto industry. They hope to improve their production quality through robots. For example, meat processing, robot operation is safer and cleaner than manual operation. At present, not only in the food and beverage industry, the electronics industry, including coal mining and other dangerous operations are also using robots, just beginning, our future prospects are very bright.

Business Week: at the end of last year, ABB reorganized the automation product business department and the robotics business department into two new business departments -- Discrete automation and motion control business unit and low voltage product business department, formerly the instrument and meter business unit affiliated to the automation product business department, and entered the process automation business department. Why do we need to make such a reorganization?

Shi Bifu: we take into account that the original organizational structure is not conducive to placing the needs of the market and customers at the top. Therefore, we have reexamined the current global market structure and the latest requirements of customers. Based on the original automation business, We readjust the structure to three new automated business departments: discrete automation and motion control business, low voltage product business and process automation business. You can see that products of low-voltage businesses usually have such commonalities: standard products, mass production, low demand for services and most of them. Sales network Channel to market. By dividing it into a separate business unit, we can carry out more effective promotion and sales activities.

The new discrete automation and motion control business department is facing the most traditional industrial field. Automation and motion control required in traditional industry include inverter, motor, controller and robot. Before restructuring, we had considered carefully whether we should add robots. The conclusion is that robots are very important. We need to better integrate robot business into automation systems for customers in traditional industrial fields. What we need to do in the future is to integrate ABB's original robot, motor, frequency converter, control and programmable controller together, and introduce more updated customer oriented solutions.

Business Week: does the reorganization mean that ABB group will change from product oriented to solution oriented?

Shi Bifu: we don't think this is a spanformation. We think this is just an extension and upgrading of the original business. Relatively speaking, the original ABB product is more oriented, and we sell a lot of products. But restructuring does not mean that we will not sell products in the future. We will still strive to sell products in the market as before. But at the same time, we have added two other business models. First, we will provide solutions according to the specific needs of customers, and at the same time, increase our engineering consulting and services in the field of product application. In addition, we effectively tie together these products that are widely applied in the industry, and directly provide solutions to customers.

Business Week: what is the market reaction after the reorganization? automation What challenges did ABB encounter in the process of business?

Shi Bifu: last night, at the ABB Automation World dinner, 5 of the guests at a table were staffs and customers from the ABB robotics department, and the other 5 were from the ABB motor business staff and customers. The ABB robot customer suddenly discovered that he knew the leader of ABB electric business, and then they began to communicate. He used ABB's electric motor and felt the effect was very good, so he procured ABB robot. This is a microcosm of restructuring promoting business growth.

from global market Look, after the announcement of our reorganization, the first reaction of the market is "we have finally waited for the right decision". Our current organization is the form of customers and market needs. System solutions and cross sectoral cooperation, and the combination of superior technology and products, can better play the advantages of ABB and provide customers with more convenient solutions. For example, there are many green electric vehicle technology in the automotive field, and consumers and automobile manufacturers are more concerned about the convenience of this kind of vehicle application. The ABB robot department can provide robot technology in the production of new energy vehicle batteries. Meanwhile, the ABB power electronics department's business expertise is to provide faster charging technology. Combining the related business of our robotics department with the related business of the power electronics department, we provide more competitive solutions to the global solutions of green electric vehicle customers.

Speaking of opportunities and challenges, I think there are two aspects, internal challenges and external challenges. The internal challenge is internal unity. For many years, many of our colleagues have carried out business in an existing way. After the establishment of the new Department, we must discover new opportunities, make new efforts and set up new visions. All of these need to be unified within the mind and then be unified into actions to push forward the whole department and business. Therefore, this requires us to make great efforts in the communication and communication between our employees. We have many branches and employees in every country in the world. How to carry out the idea of our group to the front line is a considerable challenge. We have to make a lot of efforts.

It is very important to strengthen internal training. The new mode of operation needs to expand the professional ability of the existing staff, especially the ability of front-end salesmen. They not only need to know the products they are responsible for, but also understand more products in our entire automation system and solutions. They want to convey our new system, more product knowledge and product value to our market and customers. We need to spend more time, money and manpower to do this. To this end, we will provide automatic control software, so that the products in each system can be exchanged with each other, thus forming a control system to change the situation of individual products working independently. In this regard, we have much work to do in the next few years.

The external challenge is to let the market understand our current situation. We need to let the market and customers know that ABB can do more things for them and provide better solutions. We need to step up publicity efforts.