Transforming Indonesia Society With Omron Total Solutions

What will you be thinking when automation comes to mind? You might point to Japanese robots, machines assembling cars on a production line, or the lights in your building that turn on when they sense something moving. And you are right – but each of these is only part of a far bigger picture.

"At Omron, we think of automation as not only a technology, but a mindset, one which has huge potential for every aspect of human life,” says Budi Sutanto, Managing Director PT, Omron Electronics Indonesia. “Automation allows people to get things done faster and more efficiently, or accomplish work that they are unable to do so earlier. You can apply this to every aspect from our factories to cities, offering people remarkable new opportunities to create happiness, friendship, and beauty."

So what can automation do for Indonesia?

Can driverless cars solve the problem of traffic jams?

Will self-driving cars be the solution for traffic congestion? If so, it’d be great news for Indonesian drivers and commuters, who suffer from the worst traffic in the world in Jakarta! We at Omron believe it can.

Many companies are already building futuristic, driverless cars: vehicles that use sensors and GPS to detect and react not only where they are on the roads, but how close they are to other vehicles or potential obstacles. Because they’re run by very precise computers, driverless cars avoid many of the human behaviours – like stop-starting, driving too close to other cars, or misjudging gaps in traffic – that result in traffic jams and accidents. For more than 72 million vehicles on Indonesia’s roads, this could mean far faster commutes as well as more productive and leisure time for drivers: taking a call or watching videos while driving is no longer a safety hazard!

This requires automation at a vast scale as driverless cars are expected to have as many as 200 sensors on board in the near future, amounting to 22 billion new sensors built for the global automotive industry by 2020. Software platforms will need to act on sensor data from not just cars, but also traffic lights and other road infrastructure – all without human intervention for the most part.

We are on the cusp of driverless cars and the last traffic jam. Today, Omron is in every aspect of the automotive assembly industry. From tiny data-carrier ID tags to track and document each part of the car to robotic control systems controlling engine-block piston assembly to automated sensors and boundary-monitoring safety curtains to ensure the safety of workers and protect against accident, Omron’s solutions cover the end-to-end process of building a car - that's why we call them Omron Total Solutions!

Total change in traffic demands total solutions, which go far beyond what happens on the road!

Fresh milk, faster, everyday

It’s not just futuristic developments which automation plays a defining role in. Every time you drink a glass of milk, you’ve benefited from dozens of automated processes that bring fresh milk from the pasture to your fridge.

With the growing consumer awareness of the health benefits of milk in Indonesia, demand for milk and other dairy products, like cheese and chocolate, is expected to rise rapidly in the next few years. However, domestic milk production is struggling to keep up with demand, largely because most dairy producers are smaller-scale producers who aren’t able to sustain greater volumes of milk.

How can Indonesia keep up with its people’s taste for milk? By automating how they collect, process, and distribute it! Automation plays a crucial role in carefully controlling the temperature during the pasteurisation and packaging processes, ensuring that milk stays fresh and free of bacteria and arrives in stores ready to drink. Also, automated packaging can be consistently sterilised and works far faster than human operators, minimising the risk that a carton or bottle is left out for too long or contaminated by germs.

Automation technologies can also assess the integrity of a package – whether defects might cause leakage, or expose to air – with far more accuracy and speed than the human eye. In fact, one of Omron’s customers is Tetra Pak, the world’s largest manufacturer of packing materials including milk cartons! Finally, automated packing technologies play a major role in the logistics of milk: getting it into planes and trucks quickly and efficiently, with minimal impact to the packaging, so that it ends up in stores while it’s still fresh. The value that Omron automation brings is to ensure the milk is delivered fresh and in perfect condition and good time, while also keeping prices affordable so that Indonesians can grow strong and healthier.

Much of the milk that Indonesians drink is exported from other countries like Australia and New Zealand, and is packaged using automation technologies produced by Omron. Next time you’re drinking milk, why not raise your glass to the amazing technological journey that brought it to you?

Can automation create beauty?