As our business in Norway is continuously growing including the recent acquisition of Yokogawa TechInvent, Yokogawa Norge AS was established as a true Norwegian entity in April 2019. Ged Kelly, former Sales Director UK, leads an ambitious team in Stavanger.
I am very happy to welcome today Ged Kelly and Kjetil Knutsen, Sales Manager Norway, to speak about their plans, status quo, and vision for Yokogawa Norge AS.
O&G Blog: Ged, you are responsible as a Country Manager for Yokogawa Norge. Which products or solutions does Yokogawa Norge offer?
Ged Kelly: The Stavanger office provides a local base for sales and engineering services for the Norwegian market across industrial automation and safety instrumented systems. Support and Engineering Services include the newly developed WiNoS wireless noise sensing solution with responsibility for the life-cycle management of WiNoS, including engineering, deployment assistance, support, and maintenance, in addition to upgrades and improvements.
O&G Blog: So WiNoS is the Norwegian development product? How does it work and where can you deploy it?
Kjetil Knutsen: WiNoS is a wireless noise surveillance system that monitors and maps plant noise levels in real time.
This online plant noise surveillance system employs wireless technology and explosion-proof sensors, an industry first. Even in plants where noise levels change drastically over time, noise mapping can be applied to plan work schedules that will ensure workers do not exceed specified limits for the number of work hours in a noisy environment.
Here in Norway, you could use it for offshore oil & gas, but also for wider industrial applications. For this device, we co-innovated with Equinor, one of the biggest global energy companies. WiNoS was successfully tested on one of Equinor’s offshore platforms. We make use of Equinor’s IPR in WiNoS.
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O&G Blog: When you look back so far, Yokogawa Norge is celebrating its first birthday soon. What was your biggest milestone until now?
Kjetil Knutsen: For many years Yokogawa has deployed products to Norwegian clients thus the formation and growth of local service and support capability has been a key milestone. With staff now deployed in Stavanger and Oslo area, it is excellent to see the formation of the Yokogawa team.
O&G Blog: Comparing Norway with UK- what is different here in the way you do business with customers?
Ged Kelly: Norway and the UK enjoy a healthy energy market therefor similarities can be drawn across both. It is important that local support capability is established to meet the local market requirement. Yokogawa has established a global service and support network with Yokogawa Norge AS, as the most recent office to include 24/7 support including remote support.
O&G Blog: Which vision do you have for Yokogawa Norge? Where do you want to go?
Ged Kelly: Yokogawa’s Norwegian presence is steadily growing with the acquisition of Yokogawa TechInvent in 2017, the formation of Yokogawa Norge in 2019, and the co-innovation of new products such as WiNoS. In future years Yokogawa Norge AS will grow with our Norwegian clients and market. We hope to be the employer of choice in the industrial automation sector providing the latest solutions, optimization, efficiency to the process industries.
O&G Blog: Thank you both for the interview.
