Live from Yokogawa Tech Fair--John Bowron and Dave Johnson speak

Vice president of sales, John Bowron did the "safety moment" and the introductory comments and then he introduced Dave Johnson, president of Yokogawa America. Dave Johnson said, "Yokogawa uses very few if its own products so we depend on our end users for feedback." Johnson reported that as of April 1, Shuzo Kaihori has been promoted again to CEO, but we are not to imagine that Uchida-san is retiring. Yokogawa's sales are changing-- 53 percent of sales now come from outside Japan. We are, Johnson said, becoming a global company with over 85 percent of our business in measurement and controls. Johnson described the creation of Yokogawa Electric International and what it means for the strategic growth of Yokogawa. YEI has doubled sales since 2005. "I am not Nostradamus," Johnson said, "but I predict that over 90 percent of YEI sales will be in measurement and control outside Japan." He described the Yokogawa Maverick Alliance for Chevron (YMAC)-- which is what it will take to service the Chevron Refinery of the Future. He showed the new facility in Calgary--a mini-Houston. "We have a global engineering program and it works!" He went on to talk about the Mexico office. "This is the next generation of process control," he said of the new Centum VP HMI and control systems. "It is intuitive and user focused, and you'll love it." He showed the new Yokogawa Road Show. "I n the first acquisition in ten years, Yokogawa is announcing the acquisition of Analytical Specialties, a vendor of tuneable diode laser gas analyzers. This will kick our analyzer program into a completely new gear," Johnson said. He discussed the competition. Last year, according to Johnson, Yokogawa passed Honeywell and became number two industrial automation company globally. "We're on track to become number one by 2010, but we won't stay number one unless we become number one, two, or three in North America. I believe we will do that."