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| Bob Black, President and CEO, Juki Automation Systems
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Friday marked the closing day of JPCA/Protec 2010. Unlike many other shows, this one stayed busy right up to the closing minutes. In our booth there were still six groups of customers in discussions which carried on after the closing rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Meetings continued as the team began to dismantle the booth around them. That's dedication.
Today was the day to tour the major booths and see what my competition is up to. Hitachi had a large display, but we in the West haven't seen much of them but they had plenty of traffic in Japan.
Panasonic had its usual large booth with many machines. Not many new offerings that I could see, but a great crowd was present and lots of activity. Ditto for their next door neighbors Fuji. NXT II modules in abundance and a large crowd. I did notice a slight chill in the air though, located right in the narrow strip between Fuji and Panasonic. Maybe it was an air conditioning vent. Maybe not.
I had a surprisingly warm welcome at the Yamaha booth, where Ikuo Suzuki, General Manager Mounter Sales and Service Division, and Nobu Nishizawa, Japanese Account Manager in the US and Europe gave me a great tour and invited me for coffee.
From the good natured banter I discovered that Nobu San plans to make life a bit more interesting for me by moving Yamaha ahead of Juki in US market share. I wished him good luck, but told him it would take him at least eight years to pull off. The reason? That's my planned retirement date.
My Yamaha visit illustrated a good thing about our market in the placement business. Even though we fight each other like crazy to win business, we can still share a laugh with good natured ribbing over coffee. There are a lot of nice people in our business, and these two are some of them.
By the way, Nobu San has taken up residence in Alpharetta, GA as a new neighbor of their partners at Assembleon. He also travels to Europe to supervise sales there. I was a bit confused as to the new structure, but he's a busy guy, worth keeping an eye on.
Among other booths of interest, Sony had a nice booth with a new 3D TV in on display. The Mentor Graphics booth was shared with Valor for the first time. They report business is up in all markets.
So another year's show draws to a close. All and all, a good show, well attended, and happy but tired exhibitors have the weekend to rest up before going to work on all those leads on Monday.
See JPCA- PROTEC Day 1 on June 3, 2010.
See JPCA- PROTEC Day 2 on June 4, 2010.
