New centre supports Chinese industry

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team May 16, 2005

Further expanding its global, award-winning support for SMT manufacturers, Assembleon formally opened its new China Competence Centre in Shanghai during Nepcon Shanghai.

Further expanding its global, award-winning support for SMT manufacturers, Assembleon formally opened its new China Competence Centre (CCC) in Shanghai during Nepcon Shanghai, with a gathering of customers, Chinese Government officials and high-level Assembleon and Philips executives.

Assembleon, formerly Philips EMT, has developed its presence in Asia over two decades, and serves all important centres of electronics manufacturing from a network of sales and services offices and facilities.

Under the leadership of Peter Bayes, 70 people, including 50 service and support engineers, are already working out of the Shanghai Competence Centre, and the headcount is set to increase even further.

The centre has four sections, providing sales and service support, an application/demonstration facility, a training centre with three dedicated rooms for machine and software training, and a refurbishment activity.

A strong sales and service section will allow Assembleon to enhance its engineering support during installation and ramp-up.

This section will soon be expanded with a centralised freefone call centre, which is currently under test.

This will provide Assembleon users with a fast route to resident technicians and fast-response delivery of on-site engineering assistance.

Spare parts held in stock in Shanghai will allow rapid delivery with no delay for customs clearance.

In addition, the CCC also offers a refurbishment and technical facility for equipment reconditioning and advanced calibration and repair services.

These services equal those of the International Competence Centre in the Netherlands, and hence deliver quick turnaround for Assembleon's Chinese customers.

Assembleon's CEO Cor Scholten comments: "The CCC underpins our commitment to sales and direct support in China in response to the dynamics of the Chinese market".

"We believe this to be crucial to the success of our customers in this market and of our business".

"The rapid growth in the electronics manufacturing sector in China raises an ongoing requirement for localised training, demo and application services as well as fast-response and expert service support".

"The CCC enables us to train our service and application staff so that they are completely prepared to answer every requirement for equipment and operational support - quickly, skillfully and efficiently".