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When Isao Uchida, CEO and President of process automation leader Yokogawa Electric Corporation first came to Singapore, he had big dreams for the company's first overseas base. Thirty years on, the dreams have just got bigger and attainable.
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Singapore is blessed with true friends - dedicated individuals who go out of their way to promote its economic growth through numerous contributions that transcend their job scope. One such person is Isao Uchida, CEO and President of Yokogawa Electric Corporation, one of the world's top five manufacturers of measurement instruments, and industrial automation and control systems. And for all his significant contributions to the Republic, it was fitting that Uchida was named a Friend of Singapore (FoS), an award he received from the Singapore government and the EDB this year.
Uchida began his journey to Singapore 30 years ago, when he set up Yokogawa's first offshore manufacturing facility here. Since then, Yokogawa's success in Singapore has been phenomenal. Besides this active venture, Uchida has also contributed to other value-added activities for the betterment of the economy. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Japan-Singapore Training Centre in the 1970s, which later evolved to become the School of Engineering in Nanyang Polytechnic.
The FoS recipient revealed that when he made the strategic decision to base the company's operations here, he was envisioning a future at least two to three decades down the road. He saw that Singapore possessed such important factors as excellent infrastructure, engineering capability and a vibrant and knowledge-intensive environment that were essential to becoming a global business centre.
"The policies of the Government are clear, clean and effective," said Uchida. "EDB is also very supportive of companies like Yokogawa. Singapore is also geographically located in the global market." And the Chinese-speaking capabilities of the local workforce were also an additional advantage for Yokogawa's operations.
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Singapore is a key operational base in Yokogawa's plans for global domination - and it is still expanding
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Today, Singapore is a key operational base in Yokogawa's plans for global domination - and it is still expanding. Uchida remains deeply committed as a corporate citizen, and during a recent visit, he outlined several initiatives to further boost the company's scope of activities.
GOAL 2010
Yokogawa is represented by two subsidiaries in Singapore - Yokogawa Electric Asia Pte Ltd and Yokogawa Engineering Asia Pte Ltd. They also serve as the Group's regional headquarters, with manufacturing, sales, engineering and service functions housed in a highly-automated $30 million complex in Bedok South. Singapore is also home to Yokogawa's Global Engineering and Solutions Centre and the Global Production Centre for Distributed Control Systems.
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Uchida revealed that the responsibilities of the local subsidiaries will soon be beefed up further to realise Yokogawa Singapore's capacity as a fully-fledged knowledge-intensive nucleus. The expanded Singapore operation will also, more significantly, fuel Yokogawa's objective to emerge as the number one leader in the global Industrial Automation (IA) business by the year 2010. "To achieve this goal, our Singapore operation will play an important role," stressed Uchida.
An exciting new initiative Singapore was the setting up of a software development centre in Singapore on 1 October 2004, the company's first outside Japan. Called the Singapore Development Centre (SGDC), the facility will be actively engaged in the development of production control application software for the company's CENTUM system. Yokogawa's CENTUM line has the distinction of being one of the pioneering Distribution Control Systems (DSCs) on the market, which offers a high scale of reliability to heavy process industries such as the refining, pulp and paper, as well as chemicals industries.
In Singapore, Yokogawa has over 20 years' experience in managing the hardware and engineering aspects of CENTUM. With SGDC coming on board, Uchida believes "we can plan, design and develop the packaged software in a timely manner while efficiently leveraging the advantages of being close to the global major customers in Singapore". Essentially, the SGDC's main thrust will be the development of Manufacturing Execution System solutions, which encompasses advanced process control and plant resource management software packages. As this activity requires more intensive industry and customer-oriented development, Yokogawa intends to kick off operations with 20 Japanese, and 50 local engineers.
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"Singapore will provide us an advantage to be able to access hundreds of global leading companies in those fields."
- Isao Uchida, President & Chief Executive Officer, Yokogawa Electric Corporation
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"The responsibility and scope of the Singapore operation are expanding every year as Yokogawa expands its global activities," Uchida said, proud of the local subsidiaries' growth from strength to strength. High on the company's growth strategies here is the setting up of a marketing development unit that will identify and target new areas of business. In particular, Yokogawa considers life sciences a promising field and with numerous international companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical, drug development and biomedical clusters operating in Singapore, "Singapore will provide us an advantage to be able to access hundreds of global leading companies in those fields," said Uchida.
With the setting up of the SGDC and the marketing development unit, Yokogawa will also put in place an intellectual property (IP) registration and administration centre which will manage and register the intellectual properties developed in Singapore. "By using the English and Chinese capabilities here, we are expecting to expand the scope of the work in Singapore, to handle English and Chinese IP registration of the development invented in Japan," said Uchida.
The IP registration and administration centre looks like it will be tapped into sooner than expected. According to the company, the SGDC is expected to introduce its first new product within a year or so, and this will be followed by at least 25 patents a year, over the next five years.
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In order to achieve a global number one position, Yokogawa expects a staff strength here of at least 3,000 people
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SINGAPORE - "A BOOSTER ROCKET"
Uchida hopes that these milestones planned for Singapore will help the company become the leading industrial automation supplier in the world by 2010. And in order to achieve a global number one position, Yokogawa expects a staff strength here of at least 3,000 people.
Indeed, in support of the new business units, Yokogawa is investing an estimated US$100 million in a recruitment blitz over the next six years. Some 2,000 new positions will be created, with 500 assigned to the new SGDC. The remaining number will likely assume consultant positions in industrial automation projects for the company's international clientele.
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Yokogawa's growth continues to be phenomenal. In the ASEAN region, Korea, China, India, Australia and the Middle East, the company holds number one positions - so too in Europe and America where it is gunning for second and third positions respectively, before 2010.
"I feel very strongly that I wish to achieve our global number one position together with Singapore," affirmed Uchida, confident that the development centre, the marketing development unit and the IP registration centre will "be a booster rocket" to propel the company to its global number one position.
For more information on Yokogawa, please visit: www.yokogawa.com
On EDB's Headquarters Services, please visit: Industry Opportunities/Headquarters Services section of www.sedb.com
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Friend Of Singapore
Isao Uchida's contributions to Singapore span over three decades. Uchida not only helped to convince Yokogawa's management 30 years ago to invest in Singapore, but as the first Managing Director of the Singapore operations, he also played a pivotal role in laying the strong foundation for the subsequent growth of Yokogawa Singapore.
Through the years, Uchida has also been a strong supporter of Singapore's industry development efforts. He was one of the key executives that helped in the creation of the Japan Singapore Training Centre, which later evolved to become part of the School of Engineering in Nanyang Polytechnic. Singapore's initiatives in the Singapore-Suzhou Industrial Park and the Batamindo Industrial Park were also strongly supported by Uchida and Yokogawa.
Today, as President and Chief Executive Officer of Yokogawa, Uchida continues to advocate Singapore as a strategic location for the company's global operations. The city-state is also now home to Yokogawa's Global Engineering and Solutions Centre, which executes all of the company's large-scale international projects, coordinating engineering resource centres in India, China and the Philippines.
Under his leadership, Singapore is also one of Yokogawa's four global production centres and is the sole manufacturing centre for Distributed Control Systems, the best selling hardware product for the company. Most recently, Uchida announced that Singapore would become a strategic node for Yokogawa to attain the global number one position in process control.
To achieve this, Yokogawa will set up a global software development centre in Singapore. This centre is part of Yokogawa Singapore's expansion plans to triple its size to 3,000 staff by 2010.
For his invaluable contributions to Singapore, the Singapore Government conferred on Uchida the Public Service Medal - Friends of Singapore (Business) Award.
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