Local company partners with
multinational corporation

Automated Technology Co. (ATC), is a recently established father and son business that offers home and business automation and wireless cameras in the Joplin region. They have four employees, including its owner Frank Thompson.

ABB is a multinational technology company with $32 billion in revenue and 140,000 employees worldwide.

How and why are these two companies getting together?

“Why am I here? That’s what everybody’s been asking,” said Philip R. Juneau, head of business development, building solutions electrification products division North America ABB, Inc. “That’s because they fit our model. They really fit what we want to have. I want to have 100 of these people strategically located throughout the US.”

ABB is a technology company that does everything from power distribution on a large scale to the electrical sockets in a home. The company also has robotics as well as process automation systems for oil and gas companies and special heavy industrial projects.

Juneau works for the electrification products division which includes all low voltage products within a building. His job is to bring different products and their systems all together under one platform called Newron.

“It’s basically both an integration platform and a building management platform,” Juneau said. “It’s a company that is ABB owned. We bought it three and a half years ago. It’s a very small company out of France. This company is still operating very strongly in France and we’re slowly bringing it out into different select countries.”

Juneau said they typically look for businesses like ATC that can take Newron’s solution platform and install, commission and service the product.

Juneau, however, did not seek out ATC.

“I’m online and I think these guys are trying to reach someone at ABB who does business automation,” Juneau said. “In all fairness, our company was new to this still in America so they didn’t find me right away. But these guys were so persistent and Frank (Thompson) found me somehow. I’m like what the heck is this Missouri company? What do they want?”

After several phone calls, Juneau said he had a feeling.

“These guys get it, they speak my language,” he said.

Then Juneau said he saw Joplin, Missouri, which was a little out of his New York backyard.

“I had a real confidence with these guys,” Juneau said. “The main reason why is they understood the value of the solution I was bringing right away.”

Spending a week here further convinced Juneau that the partnership was right.

“Our model is to go to local integrators like ATC because the branch business done by the others cannot be as local as these guys are,” he said. The others he refers to are big companies like Honeywell, Siemens and Johnson.

“What I like about here and what I learned this week is we were able to tie in our technology together with local partners,” he said. “We had five calls this week where we discovered solutions driven by them.”

Juneau said he likes the idea of a big, multi-national company working with a small business that covers the local needs.

“That’s the brilliant fit,” he said. “That’s what I got this week. I always felt that’s a value but it was words. Now I feel it being here. I think that, for me, is the big differentiator in the market. Again, that’s Missouri. I’ve got to find some other spots.

Smart buildings

Typically, buildings are constructed with their HVAC separate from their lighting and other systems. Simply put, they are unable to interface with each other.

According to Juneau, once those systems are interconnected, efficiency is improved and a business can reduce energy costs.

The ability to zone an area also makes it more efficient.

“That’s what we provide,” he said. “This is the platform, however we need trained people. This is not a plug and play system. That’s their (ATC’s) value added.”

Older buildings can be retrofit and, of course, new buildings can be constructed with a system.

“What we can offer from the commercial side is a central interface, working with legacy systems, building for tomorrow’s integration and automation from day one,” said Leigh Hilt, ATC operations manager.

The question remains, “Why is this technology not here?” Juneau asked. The technology has been around for 10 years and he said he is still trying to get an answer.

From one to 16, the US ranks #13 in energy efficient economies.

“I think that summarizes it very well,” Juneau said. “That technology is not here but we’re going to bring it.”

If a company just integrates its heating and air and lighting with fluorescent bulbs, it can save 40 percent in energy costs, Hilt said. If a company goes to LED, it can conservatively see 60 percent savings.

“When you are looking at the energy efficiency in the market, why is Australia ahead of us? Why is South Korea ahead of us? We’ve got Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, these major technology companies just in the United States. But these European countries are the ones that are leading the charge,” Hilt said.

As an example, Juneau explained, in the Middle East a hotel key card not only opens the door but turns on the lights, starts up the air conditioner and even turns on the television.

What does it cost?

ATC can do a tactical audit on a business to determine the cost savings. If the savings are 30 percent of $100,000, that company is saving $30,000 a year. If the system costs $90,000 then that computes to a three-year payback, Juneau explained.

“If you get that payback model that shows your operating costs are reduced, even at three years, you are getting this for the next 10,” Juneau said. “We’re going to give you these savings, we’ve got the technology to do it we’ve got ABB backing us up and we’ve got local people that are going to get it done.”

The system can also monitor, measure and show performance and with a local company, there is always someone around to troubleshoot.

“We can provide a transparency right away where whatever they are going to do, we will be able to monitor, measure and show a performance and that’s different than what is normally done today – installing products and then thank you and people go away,” Juneau said.

“What I take out of here too is a model I’d like to repeat elsewhere,” Juneau said. “I’ve got a commitment here with these guys and I’ll stand behind that and the company ABB stands behind them making sure they are successful. This will multiply”