Established in Tokyo in 1959, SMC began life as a supplier of basic pneumatic and filtration equipment. Today the company has evolved into a sophisticated provider of complete automation systems, currently with over a 60% share of the Japanese pneumatics market. The next objective is to grow the company’s global market share from 32 to 50%.
Africa is one of the key regions that will fuel this ambitious expansion plan, and Adrian Buddingh is the man tasked with establishing the first local office in South Africa. With 28 years experience in mechatronic automation, Buddingh says that the pricing of SMC products is unsurpassed. “This, together with the company’s Kaizen philosophy of ‘quality is foremost’ is what has taken SMC to the position of market dominance it currently enjoys. It is exactly these values that will inspire our efforts in Africa,” he adds. “We will remain essentially a pneumatics company, but with an holistic approach to
mechatronic system integration. We aim to provide our customers with complete automation solutions tailored exactly to individual customer requirements.”
Buddingh is setting up the local office from scratch. “We have full backing and support from head office, which has already invested R100 million to get this subsidiary up and running as soon as possible,” he explains. “Our aim is to have at least 60 people employed by mid-2016. Quite ambitious considering the technical skills required, but we have made good strides and so far have around 22 employees. I have the fortunate luxury of being able to handpick the team I want. From my years in the pneumatic industry I have met and managed many great people, and now, I feel privileged to bring them on board to face this great journey with me.”
Buddingh’s aim is to build a coherent and motivated team with the focus on servicing current SMC customers and creating new opportunities to achieve the targeted market share. “Marketing, a dedicated salesforce of highly trained professionals, and a go to the customer approach are the three cornerstones of our business strategy,” he says. “But in addition to these, I remain committed to my passion for training and skills development among our youth. This is the way we express our corporate social responsibility; it’s important that we give back to the community as well.”
Buddingh was one of the three founding members of the PneuDrive Challenge and has subsequently been involved with the competition in some form throughout. “SMC sees the PneuDrive Challenge as an excellent way of reaching the students who may one day be our engineers or customers. Worldwide the company is highly focused on skills development as training is seen as a key element of any sustainable strategy,” he explains. “This is why we have teamed up with SEW-Eurodrive as co-sponsor for the event from next year. We are very happy to give towards the skills development of our young engineers. They are after all the future of our industry.”
Buddingh intends to focus the energy of his specialist sales team on the automotive, food and beverage, petrochemical and packaging industries. The company will take up residence in its new Midrand building during November.
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