Free Access Articles, Parts, Technology , , ,

High roller: The member of the Robert Bosch board of management responsible for Asia Pacific, Peter Tyroller, says he is satisfied with the Australian side of the business.

THE director ultimately responsible for the resurrection of Bosch Australia over the past six years says he is confident the decision to keep the manufacturing side of the business going was the right decision.

Peter Tyroller, the member of the Robert Bosch board of management responsible for Asia Pacific, was speaking at the launch of the local arm’s first new product, a system to prevent the swaying of caravans and trailers at highway speeds and avoid the possibility of catastrophic jack-knifing.

“We made a clear commitment to Australia,” Mr Tyroller told GoAuto. “Probably other companies would have decided different, but we said ‘No, we don’t want to give up this beautiful place here’.

“Not that long ago we opened the new headquarters in Clayton. I think the people also feel pretty happy being here in the new building.”

The $40 million building was the biggest investment made by Bosch in Australia since its initial establishment here in the 1950s to supply Volkswagen’s Clayton plant with electrical components.

“It was a costly exercise, that’s true. We invested quite a bit, but I think it was worthwhile,” Mr Tyroller said.

The local operation suffered a heavy blow in 2011 when the group decided to close its anti-lock braking systems manufacturing operations, with the loss of 380 jobs, and the work transferred to an Asian site.

However, Mr Tyroller said he did not want to lose the 200 experienced engineers Bosch Australia had built up over the years.

He and Bosch Australia president Gavin Smith kept presenting new propositions to head office and finally Australia was designated as the world centre for trailer safety, the world centre for then production of diodes, a crucial element in vehicle alternators, and a centre for the development of body electronics.

Gavin Smith

Mr Smith said the local arm was able to maintain its expertise in certain areas despite the closure of brake systems manufacturing.

“We’ve maintained the capability to produce surface mount electronics – motherboards and soldering – after we went through our restructuring a few years ago,” Mr Smith said. “It was kept to support our engineers so they could build samples of products they were engineering.

“We were able to last year convince the parent company to go back into niche production for external customers. So we are now going to put this in as a reasonably high volume product in that facility.”

Mr Tyroller said he was pleased with the company’s recovery in recent years.

“All in all, so far so good. Since 2013 we are on a growth path again. Before, we had to restructure and restructure and really take care of our people and I am really happy now that we are coming back.”

The business had started growing again in 2015 and last year revenues had recovered to more than $800 million, after sinking to $540 million in the aftermath of the brake systems closure.

Even though the last three local car-makers – Ford, Holden and Toyota – will have closed their factories by October 20, Bosch Australia engineers are still working closely with car-makers in the region, including Indian brands Tata and Mahindra.

Models from these companies were spotted at the Anglesea proving ground where the trailer safety system was launched.

While many of the company’s engineers are engaged with offshore car-makers, Mr Tyroller is also keen to use the local engineers to pioneer the application of automotive technology to other industries, such as farming.

“In smart agriculture, the universities, farmers, banks and even the insurance companies are working closely together. Down in Tasmania it’s a really very good close community. They are open to developing solutions and, for me especially, this is a perfect test bed for us.

“So having a test bed here where you can really try out new systems and develop those systems and then transfer them to other countries, this is a unique place, Australia.”

Mr Tyroller said there were opportunities for automotive technology to be applied in farming.

“Senders. For everything you need senders. For the farming industry you need senders for humidity, for soil water content, all the different functions, and we are the global biggest manufacturer of MEMS senders – micro-electronic machine senders.

“Three out of four smartphones have a Bosch sender inside, so that’s good. We have that capability in-house.

“You need senders for farming, for connected farming, smart farming, you need senders for smart trailers, as we just saw. We use it also for the OEMs (original equipment makers – the car companies), and we have the experience there, so we can transfer that also to trailers, other activities. This is the base.

“And then you need the software capabilities, which is there, and you need to combine it (with senders) and you can come up with new solutions.”

Mr Tyroller also said Bosch was focussed on the developing Internet of Things (IoT) and wanted to be more active in this developing sphere.

“We have our own platform, our own software/middle-ware, and we have our own IoT suite where we can use the applications, and all these are connected by a gateway.

“We gather the data and, by smart algorithms and artificial intelligence, we can run additional functionalities and provide additional services also to the customers.

“It’s another area where we are really trying to step in and use the domain knowhow we have in-house for those specific areas, and we can provide really useful services. This is for me still the most important thing.”

He was quick to point out that Bosch was not interested in systems that enabled people to turn on their electric blankets while driving home.

“That’s why I said useful. You can do a lot of nonsense on the Internet of Things, let’s put it this way. The use case must be pretty much helpful, convenient, safety.

“So we have to think about the use cases. Since Bosch has a slogan, Invented for Life, I think that must fit also into our strategy so we are not a company developing Tamagotchis or something. It must be really useful.”

By Ian Porter

Manheim
Manheim
Manheim
Gumtree
AdTorque Edge
Gumtree
MotorOne
DealerCell
PitcherPartners
Schmick