TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Cost of Ownership
Throughout the world, Omron is respected
as a leader in controls and sensing
technology. Investing on average, 7% of
sales revenue back into research and
development of new products, Omron
consistently leads the industry with smaller,
faster, and smarter designs. Omron’s
passion towards being a technology leader
provides customers with advanced
processes, a competitive advantage and
the peace of mind of a partnership founded
on creation.
• Omron invests on average, 7% of total
global sales into R&D each year
• Rockwell invests less than 4% and
Siemens less than 1%
• Omron invested 4 times the
organizations held capital to build the
first centralized R&D center in 1960.
• New centralized R&D center will staff
over 500 development engineers
• Multiple satellite R&D Centers located
around the globe
• Omron developed the worlds first solid
state proximity switch
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Technology
“To the machine,
the work of the
machine,
to man, the thrill of
further creation.”
Omron Founder: Kazuma Tateisi
• Omron developed worlds first Automatic
Traffic Signal
• Omron pioneered the development of
DeviceNet and Ethernet
• Omron developed first “Mid-size”
Control platform
• Omron consistently has fastest and
smallest processors in industry
• Over 10,000 Patents
• GD 2010 specifies controls and sensing
as Omron’s core technologies for next
10 years
• Focus in upcoming years will be placed
on open platforms and software
development
Total Cost of Ownership Technology Overview
Selling Strategies Technology
General tips
Technology can play a large role in an organizations
decision to choose an automation vendor. Many
companies view technology development as key in
keeping competitive in the market. In addition, many
customers also know that advanced technology can
improve their process, increase productivity, and save
them money. As processes become more advanced, and
more technologies become available each day, knowing
what technologies your automation partner is committed
to is extremely important. The key to selling technology is
to identify the need, discuss your customer’s concerns and
then quantify how Omron addresses this concern.

Exposing a need
Before jumping into a deep discussion on technology, ask your customer questions regarding their process
roadmap or what technologies they feel will be important in the future. If you know your customer and have
done your homework, you should understand if they view themselves as a technology company. If they do, you
will be able to demonstrate a strong commonality with this section. The key to using this section, is knowing
when to use it. Usually, most large end user customers, technology based OEMs, and specialty product
manufacturers will find this section interesting. As always, feel them out first and ask permission before
advocating.

Discussing Technology
There is no way to roadmap out how to have a technology discussion with your customer. Each customer is
different and will have different views. The key is to ask lots of questions and then have open discussions. Be
cautious though, technology discussions with a customer can become passionate and lengthy. Control the
direction of the conversation and don’t get taken down a path you know you cannot recover from. Most times
customers do not need to know every specific detail regarding technology direction. They just need to
understand that their concerns will be addressed in the near future.

Quantifying Technology
The goal with a customer who is concerned with technology is to make them see that Omron has consistently
been a leader in the area of sensing and controls for years and does not plan on losing that status anytime soon.
Use examples of our processing speed, size, commitment to open platforms and other areas that you know your
customer will find valuable. Also, let your customer know that Omron is very open to feedback from their
customers and partners. Sometimes having your customer prepare a list of concerns to provide directly to
marketing or engineering in Japan may make your customer feel like someone is listening. Many times, this is
all a customer is looking for. If you are working with a large potential customer, a visit from a member in
marketing, or your manager will demonstrate commitment from the organization.
On another note, the technology section is a great lead in to the “ease of use” section of cost of ownership.
These two areas go hand in hand and a great way to explain this is by letting your audience know that as
technology advances, it is critical to ensure that our products are also easy to use.

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Cost Of Ownership Presentation Technology
The Technology section of the presentation is not
designed to discuss every single technology milestone that
Omron has been involved in over the years. It does show
some examples, but keep in mind that customers will have
different concerns.
The best way to introduce this section is to explain to
your audience that this section covers Omron’s
commitment to technology and shows some examples of
how we have consistently been a leader in automation.
Inform them that this section gives a good overview of
Omron’s history and discusses our focus in upcoming
years.
(Use the hyper link button to go directly to the stability
section)

Technology is an area that clearly differentiates

Omron from our competitors. Omron’s commitment to
research and development consistently provides our
customers with the most advanced products in the
industry.

Commitment is an important word. Lots of companies

talk about being a technology leader, but the first place
you can see their commitment is by looking at how
much they invest into development of new products and
technologies. Omron leads our competitors in this area
by putting on average approximately 7% of our total
sales back into R&D every year.
Rockwell invests only 4% and Siemens, less than 1%.
This information was taken directly from their 2001
annual reports.

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Cost Of Ownership Presentation Technology

This is not something new to Omron. Omron has

always invested heavily in R&D. In 1960, Omron built
their first centralized R&D laboratory. The company
invested over 4 times the capital held at the time in
order to fund this project. This is a major statement in
how Omron views leading edge technology. Here you
can see older pictures of the site and an example of the
main study hall with hundreds of engineers at work.

At present, Omron has 3 of these central design

laboratories. In addition to these central labs, there are
satellite R&D centers located around the globe in
Europe, China, and even here in the U.S. One of our
satellite development centers in Europe for example
houses 48 engineers that do nothing but develop our
software.
In the next couple of years, there will be a new
centralized R&D center built to replace the 3 main
R&D centers. This new facility will house over 500
engineers. The satellite centers will remain in tact.

To give you an idea of some of the innovation that has

come out of these centers, we put together a “short” list
of technology innovations. Notice that we have
developed many of the world’s first technologies in
sensing and control systems. Key items include the
world’s first proximity sensor, the first ‘mid-size’ PLC,
the first automated traffic signal, and the first PLC in
space. (This was a C200H on a space shuttle
experiment) Omron has over 10,000 patents that have
come from our technology centers and these
technologies are used in many of the products you see
today.

OMRON ELECTRONICS INC. Confidential Total Cost of Ownership Technology Overview

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Cost Of Ownership Presentation Technology

One area that Omron has been a pioneer in is open-

networks. You may be aware that Omron is one of the
founders of DeviceNet, but Omron was also one of the
first companies to develop products for Ethernet. Any
product that works on standard Ethernet protocols must
have what is called a MAC ID number. This is how the
module or device is recognized on the network. This
number is issued by an organization that verifies
compliance with Ethernet specifications. If you look at
any Omron Ethernet product, you will see that our
MAC ID number is “0A” or 10 in Hex. This means that
we had the 10th number issued and that we are actually
the second registered organization in the world
authorized to manufacture Ethernet products. We
developed Ethernet products before IBM, before
Novell, or anyone else. Xerox is the only company with
a lower MAC ID number than Omron.

Another area where you can see a clear difference in

technology is processing speed. Here is a graph that
demonstrates that Omron has been consistently faster
than Rockwell when it comes to PLC processing speed.
Our PLC’s in 1989 were as fast as Rockwell’s PLCs in
the mid 90’s. Even now, Omron PLCs have speeds that
are almost 10 times faster than that of Control Logix
(See chart notes section for more details on data)

We have now showed a bit of our technology past and

technology present. No discussion on technology is
complete however without looking at the future.
In looking forward, Omron has a 10-year plan that is
currently in place. This plan is called “Grand Design
2010” (GD2010). This plan represents the organizations
long-term corporate vision of how we will impact the
first 10 years of the new century. It outlines what core
technologies we will focus on and what we feel will be
important to our customers.

OMRON ELECTRONICS INC. Confidential Total Cost of Ownership Technology Overview

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Cost Of Ownership Presentation Technology

Looking at GD2010 a little closer, you can see that

there will be heavy focus on Advanced sensing
technologies, Data acquisition, Open platforms and
Software engineering. Sensing and controls are still
specified as Omron’s core competencies and we will
invest heavily in these areas as we move forward.

In closing, Omron’s commitment to technology

differentiates us from our competitors. In today’s
market, customers are demanding leading edge
technologies that will not only improve their process,
but will provide a competitive advantage, get products
to market quicker, and improve profits.
If these things are important to you, there is no better
technology partner in the automation business than
Omron.

OMRON ELECTRONICS INC. Confidential Total Cost of Ownership Technology Overview

One Commerce Drive For Internal
Schaumburg, IL 60173 Use Only
1-800-55-OMRON