Advantech Opens Expanded European Service Center in Eindhoven to Drive Industry 4.0 Growth
Advantech officially opened its new European Service Center — with dignitaries from Taiwan and the Netherlands — invited to tour the newly expanded smart facility, warehouse and production plant.
The Advantech European Service Center (AESC) will double the size of its warehouse and office space, and see production capacity nearly tripled, helping the firm drive regional growth and meet customers’ growing Industry 4.0 needs.
Taiwanese Ambassador to the Netherlands, Chou Tai Chu joins Eindhoven Mayor, John Jorritsma and Jeroen Nijland, Commissioner for the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), toured the new facility.
They were accompanied by Advantech Co-Presidents Miller Chang, Linda Tsai and the firm’s co-founder, Executive of Board and acting GM of Advantech Europe, Chaney Ho. Also attending were Europe executives Hans-Peter Nüdling, Jash Basindhar, MC. Chang, Peter Marek, Reinier Middel and Jeff Shih.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Advantech Europe, according to Chaney Ho, Executive Director of Advantech and General Manager of Advantech Europe.
“Since 2010, the One Europe strategy has served as the foundation of Advantech Europe and from 2014 Advantech has been highly focused on vertical markets to serve customer needs. This year, in order to strengthen Advantech's leading position in the European IoT market, we are going to promote and expand our presence in local markets across many application domains,” he explains.
“Through mergers and acquisitions and by working together with local partners, Advantech now has more than 400 locally-hired employees working in 14 offices in 10 European countries. We opened new branches locations in Barcelona and Stockholm last year and major investments are being made to collaborate closely with local industries, governments, educational institutions and research organizations. The completion of the European Service Center is Advantech’s first step towards becoming Europe’s most comprehensive IoT solutions provider and will help us reach our target of €350m revenue by 2025.
“At Advantech we’ve been at the cutting edge of technology innovation for nearly 35 years and we’re confident this expanded European HQ will give us the perfect launching pad to both showcase our products in action and meet the growing demand in the region for Industry 4.0 solutions.”
Serving as Advantech’s European headquarters, the building features a range of smart technology innovations, including a completely renovated reception area (iReception) with iVisitor digital sign-in for visitors, and a smart meeting room management system (iMeeting).
Also featured are Smart Energy control and monitoring built on Advantech’s own Smart Power Meter, Digital I/O, and Power Relay Modbus products, and WebAccess HMI/ SCADA software. It offers intelligent functionality to monitor and control light and temperature — reducing costs and carbon emissions and thus improving the user experience.
The Internet of Things (IoT) extends further in the facility to an iLunch booking system which centralizes staff food orders made via POS terminal or their PC or smartphone app, and automatically distributes them to third-party catering companies.
Digital signage throughout the facility is on hand to offer staff and visitors useful information when and where they need it most. In the production area of the new plant, Advantech practices Industry 4.0 with a highly customized CTOS Manufacturing Execution System (iCTOS MES), process automation, machine automation, and equipment/environment monitoring.
Real-time data is collected, analyzed and then displayed in a Situation Room to help managers take action, monitor KPIs, speed improvement cycles and support a high degree of product customization.
