Special Edition

CLPA Global Activity Report

Making a GlobalBreakthroughwith CC-Link & CC-Link IESpecial Interview

Global strength of CC-Link/CC-Link IE increases withBalluff's nomination to the CLPA Board of Directors

Special Interview

CLPA Global Activity Report 2013

Global strength of CC-Link/CC-Link IE increases withBalluff's nomination to the CLPA Board of Directors
With more than 50 years of experience in sensors, Balluff GmbH is one of the world’s
leading sensor specialists in all areas of automation. For some years now the company
has increasingly been developing from a pure sensor and components manufacturer
into an automation and systems supplier. Since 2008 Balluff has been a member of
the CLPA and is now entering the Managing Board of the organisation as the eighthcompany worldwide. In an interview, Jürgen Gutekunst, Vice President, Business Unit
Networking and Business Unit Systems at Balluff, gives an overview of the company,
explains the reasons for the increased commitment to CC Link and describes his vision
for the future of the CLPA.
Mr Gutekunst,Balluff can look back overmore than 90 years of history and has
developed from a mechanical repair
workshop for bicycles, motor cycles andsewing machines into an international
sensor specialist. This sounds like a real
success story!
It certainly is! The family company was
founded in 1921 by Gebhard Balluff and is
now in its fourth generation. Balluff is aworld mark et leader in the ar ea of
inductive sensors. As well as sensors, forsome time now our f ocus has been
increasingly on automation technology.
We are now represented in more than 50
countries worldwide and have eight
production locations, including one inChengdu in China. Development is mainlyt ak in g p l a c e a t o ur h e a d o f f i c e in
Neuhausen near Stuttgart, but also in
Hungary and to some extent in Switzerland
and the USA. The company is divided into
the six business divisions Object
Recognition, Path Measurement,
Identification – this also includes our RFID

CC-Link IP67/ IP65 Protected Machine
mount I/O blocks

2products –, Accessories, and for some years
now, Networking and Systems.
What are the essential features whichcharacterise Balluff products?
We always try to react to our customer’s
requirements with added value, which
necessarily leads to innovative productswith outstanding characteristics. For us 1 +1 = 3! This does not mean that innovations
and product improvements necessarily
have to be complex – often they are minor
things that are worked out in dialogue withour customers. For example the two-holemounting of our network and RFID
modules. Customers had not asked as suchfor this additional benefit. However, it wastaken up with enthusiasm. Now only twoholes have to be drilled instead of four, twoscrews used instead of four and so on.
Extrapolate this over several hundred
devices, such as were recently made in aplant in the USA. The time saving isenormous, assembly is greatly simplified
and so the costs are markedly reduced.
Another nice feature and uniquecharacteristic of our modules is theintegrated display. The CC Link module was
the first we fitted with the illuminated,easily readable display instead of the
traditional rotary switch. This means that it
is not only convenient for setting theaddress, but the hardware and software
status can also be read out easily. It sounds
like a minor thing, but it makes operation
so much easier!
The Networking business division iscomparatively young. So, how did a sensor
manufacturer get onto the subject ofnetwork technology?

In 2005 Management decided to support
the core sensors business by targeted
involvement in the area of connectivity.
This investment was a first step in thedirection of factory automation. The
argument was relatively simple at thattime: we wanted to supplement our core
portfolio and offer the customer something
more. If we want to increase ourinvolvement in Asia, for example, it is notenough solely to offer sensor products. We
now also carry the associated network
solutions, starting with the corresponding
CC Link modules – IO modules and RFID
systems – through to the necessary plugconnectors and network devices. This farsighted decision has paid off: in themeantime the division is growing into thehigh double figures. This makes it clear that
we are being very well accepted in themarket as far as this subject is concerned.
Balluff has been a CLPA member since
January 2008. How did this decision comeabout?
The decisive reason was our objective ofentering the rapidly growing Asian market
not only with our sensors, but also with ourautomation technology. The support of theCLPA was necessary for this. Today Baluff’s
CC Link f amily has six BNI (Baluf fNetworking Interface) I/O network modules
and the BIS-V (Balluff Identification System)
RFID controller. The products are
manufactured from a high quality die-castzinc housing and fulfil the most demanding
requirements from the field. The new BIS-V
generation is an evaluation unit with fourconnections for write – read heads, which
supports all current protocols. With anadditional IO Link V1.1 port, a futureoriented interface for the field, serial
communication can be developed into an
intelligent device. For example, an input
hub for sensors can be connected to theport. This turns the RFID unit into a
multifunctional node in the CC LinkNetwork.
Recently Balluff became a member of theManaging Board of the CLPA and therefore

the first company based in Europe to beinvited onto the Managing Board
An opportunity like that doesn’t present
itself every day! CLPA’s invitation tobecome a member of the Managing Board
was put to us by Mitsubishi Electric. We did
not hesitate for long, because in thisposition we can help actively to shape thefuture in the CLPA. If you want to be a
global player, you also have to make yourproducts available for the big three E ur o p e , A m e r i c a an d A s i a. W e ar eunderlining this statement again now as amember of the Managing Board. The Asianmarket is catching up at a rapid pace in thearea of automation technologies. We bestlearn how a market functions if we work
closely with an organisation such as theCLPA. Conversely, we can bring in a lot ofexperience from the “old” markets and set
the direction together with the CLPA, tomake new technologies such as IO Link andits use comprehensible for customers inAsia. The decentralisation of automation,
which we have already experienced inEurope and North America, is and willremain an important topic in Asia, which
we would like actively to push forward anddirect a little, because it’s true to say thatyou can best predict the future if youshape it.
The trend towards decentralisation infactory automation began in Germany in the1990s, and in Asia it’s just starting. There’s
still a long way to go here …
That’s true! A fundamental change needs
time. You have to consider that not
everything from the Western world can betransferred to Asia on a one-to-one basis.
We have to adjust the arguments for ourtechnologies locally in discussions withcustomers. In a foreign cultural area such as
Asia we first have to learn and accept
specific features of that region. One
example is that the time efficiency which
our highly developed technologies bring is
no t nec essarily the clinching sales
argument in low-wage Asian countries.
Wage costs alone do not make it absolutely
necessary to introduce slick solutions ininstallation and maintenance. Conversely,
China in particular has now advanced to
become an export nation, in which
Western standards and special customer
requirements have to be fulfilled more andmore frequently. Western solutions will
now also be listened to at this point.
What is your opinion of the future of theCLPA? And what role does Balluff want toplay in it?
I think that technologies such as CC Link,
Profibus or Ethernet/IP will no longer
continue to be regionally limited in thecoming years. In the USA, for example, weare equipping a large plant with CC Linkand IO Link. The task arising from this for
the CLPA is immense, because the spreadof CC Link will not be limited to Asia. Balluff
is already supporting the CLPA campaign“Gateway to China” (G2C), which make iteasier for device manufacturers to enter
the market in China. The CLPA will also
have to establish itself in Europe and North
America as ambassadors for CC Link andCC Link IE Field. Balluff is able to provide
support in these regions and wants to doso, because not only are our core markets
located there, but there is also a great
potential for automation. The needs andproblems of customers such as pricepressure, productivity increases or unit cost
reduction have been the same for years
and in all regions. What have changed are
the technologies by which the problems
are approached. The success of the CC Link
campaigns will chiefly depend on how well
the technologies respond to the demands
mentioned. Balluff can contribute toreaching the market in a targeted way inthe most varied segments of industry.

Jürgen Gutekunst

Vice President,
Business Unit Networking and Business Unit Systems

Are concrete projects pending with theCLPA?
At Balluff we are already tackling thenext challenge: the integration of theEthernet based network CC Link IE Field
with a transfer speed of one gigabit. Here
we are working closely with Mitsubishi
Electric, which uses the standard network
CC Link and the Ethernet version CC Link IE
Field in its control systems. Thisdevelopment project not only includes
network modules, but also RFID controllers.
As a member of the Managing Board, weintend to work together with the CLPA on
the market acceptance of this new
generation of decentralised automation
modules.

talking about “Industry 4.0”. What role does
this play at Balluff?
Balluff is on the way from being a
success f ul components supplier tobecoming a no less successful solution
supplier. The fact that we are also preparedto take the next step is shown by thefounding of the Systems Business Unit two
years ago, which means we are alreadyright in the middle of things: we want to be
involved in determining the future andobtaining new impetus for innovations
from the discussions in connection withIndustry 4.0. We are working on realising
the concept mainly across the businessdivisions Identification, Networking andSystems. We have the necessary sensor
systems, Ethernet based network
technology – soon also CC Link IE Field –and the RFID technology for controllingand identification of process stages. The
last module is the intelligent IT supported
combination system, where themanufacturing and logistics sequences are
not determined by one central control
system, but the product controls itself as afunction of its characteristics. This ensuresmaximum flexibility – and also a re-think!
An initial project concerns e-kanban
systems for individually packaged goods
management. With the assistance of RFID
and a specially developed logic, the kanban
system becomes intelligent. An initial pieceof the jigsaw in the context of Industry 4.0,
in which the kanban containers control
themselves in the end.

One more question to finish: everyone isThank you for the interview!

3CLPA Office Locations
CLPA - Japan（Head Office）

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CLPA - Korea

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