New motion technology is always fun
because you get things moving with it. We just heard Kai talking about it. You can see
a lot of motion here on the booth. It's a crowded,
very busy day here in Nuremberg. That's good. Because there are
so many things to discuss. Good morning, Frederike. -Good morning, Felix.
-I would like to have a look at you with the big bouquet of products
which we brought. PLC++, MC3, AX1000, new digital I/Os. Tomorrow we will have
a look at a new XTS motor module. Can you put this into the bigger picture
for us a little bit? Of course. First of all, hello and welcome
to Live + Interactive here on Wednesday. As you can see,
it really is a crowded booth, which is really good,
and it is only in the morning. Let's see what else we will see today. It's always important that we go two ways when we are thinking about further
developing our product categories. On the one hand, it's really necessary
that we listen to our customers needs, their demands. Especially in these days talking
about price-sensitive markets, products, it is important
that we listen to this need and thinking about product categories
which address exactly this demand. I would say some of our digital I/Os and also the AX1000 they are
exactly answering this question. On the one hand
it doesn't make a lot of fun and it is also not the only part we have to think about is, what are new technologies,
where does the way lead? If we are thinking about IT technologies,
how would we like to develop further? PLC++ and also Motion Control 3,
they are exactly some of those answers, at least from our point of view, we are giving to where to go
with the new trends in terms of technology. I think there is also a lot
of company philosophy behind it. Just mentioned the IT trend. We always try to make
the most powerful controller, integrate the latest, greatest. Bringing the IT world,
the automation world, exactly right. It's the same with these technologies. We need to enable our users
to utilise all these advancements. Where does the MX-System fit in there? It is a well-known product already,
has been introduced a couple of years ago, and I think it is one
of the easiest products to sell because it is so natural. That is true. Later you will see it if you touch it and if you do it yourself
and build the cabinet with the MX-System, it gets quite clear. The MX-System combines both
of the ways I was describing before. Because, on the one hand, we are addressing
the needs we deeply know. Our company, we started out
as a system engineering company, so building a cabinet and thinking about all
the things which are complicated, which are annoying,
which makes life hard, we know them ourselves. We have a department of 400 people
working in system engineering, so we really do have
a lot of knowledge there, and know how to improve
the customer situation. On the one hand,
we think about the next step, how can we really go ahead and have a revolution
in terms of how to build a cabinet or not building
a cabinet any more in the future? This is the result how and when we came out
basically with the MX-System. Also, needs-based,
but also looking into what's possible, what can be required in the future. There are some technologies
which don't really fit in the needs-based argumentation,
I would say. It would be hard to find somebody
5, 6, 7 years ago who said, "I need an XPlanar system." -It's maybe a little bit too abstract.
-We need hobbies. We need hobbies, that's a good one. We need something to do in the spare time. Where do these
special technologies fit in? It's not only XPlanar. No, it is not only XPlanar. You could name ATRO,
you could name Vision, etc. It is really important that we deliver
a kind of well-known set of products, a product portfolio which probably satisfy
60, 70% of our customers needs. All our customers, they're coming from many different industries
all over the world, and no application is the same
as another application. We would like to find solutions
and answers for all the different demands
and questions customers have. This requires that, although it might not
be a big product category in the future, but it requires us to think about all
the different demands customers have. The result for us is that we have a lot
of specific products as well. Because we know
there is a certain industry, there are certain customers
and applications who exactly need this. Hopefully, with our big product portfolio, we can find an answer
on almost every application and demand our customers have. That's basically two things
our customers can rely on. First, we have really, really good
optimised automation basics, which everybody needs and requires, but you will also find
cutting-edge special technology here on our booth. -Perfect summary, exactly.
-Thank you. I think our booth is, once again,
a perfect example for it. It is the 1,801 square metre,
I learned from Daniela and the marketing- -The one square meter is important.
-The one square meter is important. It's 250 metres
if you put all of it together with product exhibition walls,
and we still don't have everything here. That's a big portfolio. Some would maybe say it's a jungle because there are so many
different technologies. How do we make sure that nobody
is getting lost in there? That is a good point because
it's not only becoming challenging for our customers every time
we introduce more products, it's also becoming
internally challenging for us. There are two important ways
we have to go, a path that we have to follow
in terms of answering your question. The first one is we really have to focus
on growing our sales channel in terms of numbers, of course, but also in terms of know-how
we are bringing into the sales channel. Out of the 5,700 people we have
on a global base working inside Beckhoff, almost 2,000 of them
are somewhere close to the customer directly in sales and support, application,
giving trainings, or what so ever. This is already a big number, but as I said, there are different ways
we still have to improve and grow in terms of our sales channel. On the other hand,
talking about #usability, it's really important that we're always thinking about all the developments
we undertake in our product categories. That we always think about the usability and making our products
as easy to use as possible. There are a lot of "as" in this sentence because automation technology
isn't always simple, and you cannot strip it down
to purely being easy and simple. I think some of our products
are going in the right way. Some others there's need to be made
probably a bit more usable for us, or for our customers. Also, there we're on a good way,
and I'm quite positive about it. If we are following both ways,
then we are on a really good direction. You can be sure with Beckhoff that you will have
the latest greatest technology, and at least a very good
and nice person at hand which helps you
to implement this in your machine. At least we are trying, agree. Thank you very much, Frederike. I hope you will have a very busy day
with lots of discussions and fun discussions with customers
from all over the world. I would like now
to proof you a little bit because we are now going to look
into the MX-System and how this
actually makes life a little bit easier. -That sounds really good. Bye.
-Thank you very much. Bye.
