Yokogawa Engineering Asia today announced the opening of the first Co-innovation Centre in Singapore in the first quarter of 2016 at its biennial Yokogawa Users Conference Asia Pacific 2015. The Co-innovation Centre will focus on the development of new industry solutions with clients to boost next generation industrial automation process capabilities. Supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the first centre of its kind to enhance industry collaboration, will involve a total investment of S$112 Million over the next few years.
The Co-innovation Centre is part of Yokogawa’s mid-term business plan Transformation 2017, drawn and launched on its 100 years anniversary, for long-term growth and value creation through Process Co-Innovation1 with clients.
Increasingly, clients are facing enormous challenges in enhancing plant availability, reliability, safety and operator effectiveness. The industry is grappling to find solutions to deal with rapidly changing technological and global business environment. The advances in todays’ sensor & communication technologies is enabling us to get more insights to the manufacturing processes and across the overall supply chain. The integration of information technology and operation (IT-OT) technology is increasingly becoming pivotal to derive the required intelligence for effective decision-making process. There is a strong need to exploit information technologies to process large amount of information available from new sensor technology. The Industries are in dire need for a breakthrough technology to process big data available from the integration of information technology and operation technology and apply it back to the industrial automation systems to achieve better predictable, highly adaptable and vertically integrated manufacturing processes.
The Co-innovation Centre armed with proven technologies from Japan, will focus on strong collaboration & partnership with clients as well as renowned IT companies to develop customer-specific, cross-functional and intelligent solutions. These solutions can bring about wider adoption of remote monitoring technologies that help improve planning and predictability, thereby contributing to the reduction of maintenance costs and operation expenditures. This will improve the efficiencies in resource-scarce countries especially in critical Oil & Gas and Chemical industries and thereby greatly push for higher productivity.
“Yokogawa’s first Co-innovation Centre exemplifies Yokogawa’s commitment in Research & Development. The Yokogawa Group will make certain its R&D investments remain relevant and consistent in developing innovative capabilities and technologies to provide greater efficiencies in our delivery of customer-focused solutions.” said John Hewitt, Managing Director and President of Yokogawa Engineering Asia Pte. Ltd. He continued, “The Co-innovation Centre, being located in the heart of South East Asia, Singapore, sits in an advantageous geographical location with good infrastructure and connectivity to our valued clients within this region. The centre opens up new opportunities for Yokogawa to work closely with our clients to respond quickly to the needs of the global market situation, and to develop next-generation capabilities and technology to enhance the competitiveness of the industrial automation industry.”
“We are pleased that Yokogawa has chosen Singapore to set up its Co-Innovation Centre to develop smart industrial solutions with other technology leaders based here. These innovations can help transform our manufacturing facilities, particularly in oil & gas and chemicals, to be “best-of-class” in terms of resource efficiency. In turn, the lead demand generated in Singapore for these smart industrial solutions will enable Yokogawa to demonstrate the effectiveness of their new technologies before they are exported to the region and beyond,” said Lim Kok Kiang, Assistant Managing Director, EDB.
About Yokogawa
Yokogawa's global network of 88 companies spans 56 countries. Founded in 1915, the US$3.5 billion company engages in cutting-edge research and innovation. Yokogawa is active in the industrial automation and control (IA), test and measurement, and aviation and other businesses segments. The IA segment plays a vital role in a wide range of industries including oil, chemicals, natural gas, power, iron and steel, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, and food. For more information about Yokogawa, please visit www.yokogawa.com.