Pictures of the Future Fall 2006
Inventors & Innovators – Thomas Schott
Siemens A&D, Nuremberg
Father of Control Systems
Simplicity is our recipe for success," says Thomas Schott, 52, head of Production Automation at Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) in Nuremberg. The Simatic controls that are produced by this Group were designed from the very beginning for non-specialists, so that any engineer or technician could learn to operate them. The origin of these controls goes back to the 1950s, but it wasn’t until 1979 that sales began to take off. Schott, who studied electrical engineering at Schweinfurt College, had joined Siemens the year before. Today, he is considered to be "the father of Simatic"—or, as he jokingly refers to himself, "the grandfather of control technology."
As Schott recalls, Simatic was originally just a "local hero" that had to struggle to establish a customer base in the German market. Today, Simatic is the world’s undisputed leader in its segment, with a 36-% market share. Its success is the result of hard work and continual innovation in an environment where such devices were becoming steadily smaller, and computing power ever greater. "There’s really no such thing as radical innovations in our sector—our product cycles run from five to seven years," says Schott, who adds that this doesn’t make things easier. That’s because the 170 people in his core team have to keep up with the daily pace of technological development and immediately incorporate new technologies into new products, if that’s what the customer wants. They have adopted a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, they regularly conduct innovation discussions with major customers in the most important markets to determine the course of new developments. They also identify technology trends by working with renowned universities and commissioning the development of new technologies within A&D, such as Internet connections or completely digital factories with self-organizing production units. The trick is to reconcile customer requirements with technological feasibility.
A radical technology transformation is currently under way at A&D. In the future, product design data will be used to generate production control software, which will reduce costs by 50 to 70 %. And the time it takes from planning to production launch will also be significantly reduced.
Schott sees himself as a generator of ideas who draws his energy and creativity from discussions with customers. He believes that experience is extremely important in his job. "If you keep taking on new people, they’ll keep making the same mistakes," he explains. That’s not exactly helpful in a market that demands continuity and stable customer relationships.
Of course, this doesn’t mean Schott’s team never makes mistakes. However, Schott reports that 70 % of the team’s ideas end up being successful and making money, which means he can accept a 30 % failure rate. And, as Schott is quick to add, the only people who don’t make any mistakes are those who leave everything just as it is—and that’s the biggest mistake of all.
Bernd Müller
Innovators
How and Why Innovations Originate. Many management books focus on the theory of innovation processes, strategies and methods—but to what extent can such theories explain the origins of innovations? We’ve put together 14 brief portraits that present Siemens inventors and innovators and their experiences. We explored their personalities and examined the efforts they made to overcome obstacles. In the end, we found that there’s no standard recipe for innovation success. Some innovations result from the pure persistence of visionary pioneers who think out of the box, while others are born of a consistent approach that involves analysis and continual process improvement. Still others bear fruit because inventors incorporated customers into the process at an early stage, especially in their own regions, or worked together with external partners. What all our innovators have in common, however, is a propensity to think independently and the need for a culture that permits errors and promotes employee creativity. Above all, such a culture must always consider the utility of new ideas for customers.