Info Lunch bei Siemens Corporate Technologies (CT)

July 9, 2004 in Munich-Perlach

Organized by the Swiss Association of Research Managers & Administrators (SARMA) and the Zentrum für Wissenschaftsmanagement e.V. Speyer (ZWM)

Programm

10:00 Dr.Stuckenschneider
      • Welcome
      • Pictures of the Future - Instrument einer Zukunftsplanung

10:45 Prof. Blum, P. Büttner
      Goals of ZWM and SARMA

11:15 Visit of the labs
      • Usability Lab Dr. Schoen
      • Piezo-Einspritzventil Prof. Meixner
      • SpeechCenter Hr. Hoffmann

12:45 Prof. Dr. Weyrich
      Innovationsmanagement at Siemens

13:30 Standing-Lunch

14:00 Farewell

Report by SARMA members Peter Büttner and Michele De Lorenzi

18 participants gathered in the impressively large München-Perlach facility of Siemens primarily to discuss the "HOW" and "WHY" of the management of Siemens Corporate Technology (see agenda of visit). As practiced for years at SARMA in this type of events, they should show examples of "best practice" in Research Management and Administration to further the professional know-how, "networking" and exchange of ideas between the Research Managers and Administrators visited and those visiting from the "outside".

At Siemens CT a core aspect of Research Management is planning of research. Siemens CT's model for this is called "Pictures of the future". Dr. Stuckenschneider, Head of Strategic Marketing of Siemens CT, started by pointing out the motivation for planning the future: The rapidly changing environment in the worlds electric and electronic market. As an example of a fundamental change he mentioned the decreasing importance of the production for Siemens – it can be "outsourced" globally. Siemens wants to play an active role in defining the future and not just to be a passive spectator. The traditional approaches to define future scenarios is for Siemens not satisfactory: The results of the Delphi method are very difficult to implement; the simple extrapolation from the actual situation does not allow to identify discontinuities in technology or "technological hops". Therefore Siemens CT developed its own method: It combines extrapolation from the present and retropolation from scenarios of the future: this allows to develop realistic pictures of the future. To introduce also completely new technologies into Siemens – and not only make existing ones more perfect – "Strategic Visioning" is performed. Factors which influence this process are the individual human being, society, politics, economy, environment, technology, customers and competition. For Siemens CT the possibility to produce a technology ("Machbarkeit") is an important criterion. In the discussion it was also pointed out that Siemens CT is in constant competition with outside sources: Siemens' various industrial groups may get their needed research and development results from wherever they are convinced that they are most promising for them.

After a short introduction into ZWM Speyer by Prof. Blum and SARMA by Peter Büttner, lab visits in two groups in the Usability-, Piezo-Injection-valve- and Speech Center laboratories as examples of Siemens CT's own research and development activities followed.

Prof. Weyrich, head of Siemens CT, presented then his thoughts on "Innovation Management" at Siemens CT. Starting from the history of Siemens since 1847 Prof. Weyrich positioned Siemens in today's global electric and electronics market as third behind GE and IBM. Siemens' broad spectrum of businesses encompasses the IT-, medical-, transport-, lighting-, power– and automation/control-industries. Globally there are 50'000 employees active in R&D. Siemens has a yearly R&D budget of € 5.1B which is 6.8% of sales. Siemens CT's budget is 6% of this (i.e. around € 300M).

Siemens goal is "to be the trendsetter in our business". They may not be the "first mover" nor the "fast follower" but the "trendsetter". This is achieved by a comprehensive vision, technical and R&D leadership, a strong patent portfolio, the use of synergies, an optimised innovation process and - last not least – a network of excellent people. Weyrich considers as core competence the interdisciplinary research and knowledge management. As examples he mentioned the piezo-electric injection and the computed Nuclear Magnetic Resonance tomography.
Siemens manages its intellectual assets globally and thus creates global synergies. An interesting aspect of Siemens R&D strategy is also "R&D grows where business and market grows". This is currently primarily the case in the Far East.

Siemens CT has worldwide about 1700 researchers and locations in Germany, China, Japan, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. For Siemens it is important to spread research activities in different countries. On the one side country specific aspects can be considered better. On the other side, Siemens' acceptance in the respective country is improved. The financing model of Siemens CT is based on 35% Corporate Funding, 10% (Siemens) External Funding and 55% contracted funding from Siemens groups.

Weyrich considers as important competencies of Siemens CT: Future orientation, customer orientation ("one-stop-shopping"), economies of scale through multiple use of technologies and the professional delivery of services.

Before the participants gathered for the standing lunch to continue discussions and for networking, Prof. Blum thanked Prof. Weyrich on behalf of the initiators of this event from SARMA and ZWM Speyer. Looking into the future he mentioned that this model for events will be pursued further by ZWM Speyer – not the least to intensify the dialogue between industry and academia/public research institutions. Next events are under consideration and will be announced in due time.

Participants from Siemens CT

• Prof. Dr. Weyrich, Member of the board of directors of Siemens and Head of Siemens Corporate Technology
• Dr. Stuckenschneider, Head of Strategic Marketing
• Dr. Wienholt, Head Strategy Field Information & Communication & Automation
• Dr. Schoen, Head User Interface Design
• Prof. Meixner, Head Sensor & Actuator Systems
• Mr. Hoffmann, Head Speech Center
• Mr. Schmitter, Corporate Technology Executive Office

Pictures