Firstly, could you tell me more about yourself and this facility you are opening today?
Alexander Tjioe (AT): I joined Schunk in April 2015, and I have been in the metal fabrication industry for over 20 years. We are very interested in expanding our presence in this region.

This facility we are opening today is the first technology centre in Southeast Asia for us. We also plan on opening a technology centre in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in Q4 of 2016. In addition to this, a third technology centre is being planned for Thailand. This Thai office should be open in the middle of 2017. With these three technology centres, we can support the whole of ASEAN, which consists of 10 countries , plus the Pacific region, which consists of Australia and New Zealand.

Why did you pick these three countries for your technology centres?
AT: It is our plan to be close to our customers. What this will mean is quick after-sales support and technology transfer. The Indonesian technology centre will be serving Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Vietnam would be serving the Philippines, and the Thailand technology centre will serve Laos, and Cambodia. Thailand itself is a huge market for us, just like Indonesia. These three major countries will support the whole region.

What type of functions will these technology centres have?
AT: Each one of these technology centres will have an engineer placed locally. They will each have a dedicated seminar room, with dedicated machines and all our automation components. In this way, we can serve our customers locally and send users for training seminars, and serve them better in after-sales support.

We do not do any research here. All our research and development efforts take place back in Germany. This is primarily a sales and engineering office. We have local engineers who all speak English. As such, they can solve and discuss with the customers the issues they are facing. With these facilities, we can send our engineer from Vietnam to Indonesia, and Thailand, and vice versa. We support each other in that regard.

How do you rate the success of these technology centres?
AT: The most important thing is that we are there for the customer. If we are not locally placed it is not good for our customers. We must work well with our partners, such as our automation partners, our system integrators, and so on. That is our strategy for the region.

What is the awareness like for Schunk in Indonesia?
AT: Brand recognition is an issue. When we talk about Schunk they usually only know one product, which is our tool holders. As such, branding efforts in this region is very important to get our message across and make the local populace more aware on our offerings. It is very important to put our brand out there so people are aware. My job is to educate the market that Schunk has a huge variety of products, and not only tool holders.

What are some of the other challenges in doing business in Indonesia?
AT: As I said, branding is an issue, however German products have a good reputation locally in Indonesia and this region. It should be mentioned however, that this is a very price sensitive market and it is the perception that German products are on the higher side in regards to price. It is our job to educate them on this, as our products are competitively priced.

How do you envision Industry 4.0 impacting your business?
Harald Dickertmann (HD): This is a big topic right now. I would say for Southeast Asia it is differentiated in regards to the level of understanding regarding this. Singapore, for instance, is very close to it and is discussing it on a high level. On the other hand we have other countries where this is not a big topic yet. Eventually it will become a big topic for all the world’s manufacturing sites.

We are working with a lot of associations and working groups for Industry 4.0. In the past, we had hydraulic grippers, which can do basic open and close operations. Today and tomorrow we are talking about intelligent grippers, which consist of sensors for measuring temperature, weight, pressure, proximity and so on. These grippers improve not just productivity, but safety as well, which is particularly important in a collaborative robotics environment that is an industry trend right now.

What are the priorities for the metalworking sector within Indonesia?
AT: Automotive is a big sector for us, not just in Indonesia but in Thailand as well. In ASEAN countries we have aerospace, automotive, pharmaceutical, medical, electronics, and on on. With the products that we offer, we can serve these industries.

HD: I noticed a trend when I was in Singapore talking to a customer of ours that local subsidiaries of multinational companies are becoming more independent. They develop their own technology and solutions that fit to the sometimes unique requirements on their country/region.

Our industry is evolving from a copy and paste approach in which companies would transplant their offices that operated well in say, Germany, to another country with a different set of requirements, to an approach that would allow locally placed offices of multinationals to evolve organically with that environment. This would involve training and raising up the local engineering capability within these countries so they have the capability to solve real-world problems that may be unique to their environment.

We see this on a bigger scale in China, and I also see this in Southeast Asia. At Schunk, we believe we have to be here with our technology and our knowledge to support engineering teams locally to advance and reach a higher level.

How many people do you have working here in this office?
HD: We have one engineer, one administrative staff, and we have Mr Tjioe here. There is one technical expert stationed in Singapore. He travels frequently. There will be more engineers added depending on the development of the business.

Is one engineer enough for Indonesia?
HD: I would say for a greenfield project, one engineer is good to suppor t the day-today business here. In the long run, I think the market has more potential for just one engineer.