Working with Partners

BH: In today’s manufacturing world, machine builders are being asked to deliver more than just machines. They’re expected to deliver complete, reliable solutions that integrate control, robotics, motion, safety and data, all while reducing risk and accelerating time to market. No single company can realistically optimize every part of that equation. That’s why partnerships between technology

suppliers are becoming a critical part of how machines are designed, built and supported. A great example of this is the partnership between Siemens and SuperTrak, where SuperTrak HORIZON3™ is completely integrated into the Siemens TIA Portal environment. Without getting into technical details. It’s a case where two technologies are designed or optimized to work together in the same workflow, rather than being bolted together after the fact. Today we’ll start with that example, and then zoom out to talk more broadly about why partnerships matter in manufacturing when they make sense, how they create value for machine builders, and what it takes to keep them successful over time. Today our guest is Christian Gehrhardt from Siemens.

Welcome to the podcast, Christian. It’s great to have you here.

CG: Hi, Ben. Thanks for having me.

BH: Before we dive into the partnerships, I’ll let you introduce yourself. So please, Christian. Thanks.

CG: So my name is Christian Gehrhardt, As he said, I’m working for Siemens headquarters in Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany. I’m there the responsible for Business Development for what we call Robotics and Flexible Conveyance Solutions. So to sum it up a little bit, the mechatronic systems and partnerships that we have, and especially there within a solution area for machine builders.

BH: Okay. Thank you very much. So let’s dig into why partnerships matter. So why are partnerships becoming more important in manufacturing today compared to in the past?

CG: Well, I think looking at the market, I mean, I obviously don’t have the experience from 40 years ago, but I see today is that the market is evolving very fast and innovations are getting faster, faster, adopted. And I think times are over when, one company may build a black box solution or may cover all aspects of automation or machine building. I mean, looking at things like you mentioned, robotics, looking at IT/OT integration, data, this is something where you definitely need partners to cope with the requirements that you have in manufacturing today and tomorrow.

BH: Interesting. So the scope of what is required from the end user perspective is getting bigger and bigger almost. So from what you see, machine builders are- machine builders – sorry – are being asked to deliver more complete integrated solutions than ever before.

CG: Exactly. And I think automation is a is a is a big portion here. I mean, the one thing is you need to automate, okay. This is where, for example, Siemens as an overall automation suppliers might help, but also from a machine builder’s perspective taken for example, ATS, who’s very good in building machines for medical assembly or medical devices. Yeah, yeah. But you will see is that you have especially around the machine, front of line, end of line, you’re more and more auxiliary functions, let’s say that need to be automated. So you need to think about how to get the material to the machine, how to pack the material. And this is just a partnership concept that might include other OEMs. But there are more aspects to that. While automating by going more digital, I think.

BH: Interesting, interesting. And do you think these kinds of partnerships help machine builders reduce the risk when adopting new technologies?

CG: Well, I think it’s two aspects. The one is obviously reducing the risk, but also, reaching a faster time to market. I mean, you can develop a lot by yourself as a matter of, of money and time. I think what the customers need today is that it’s a fast changing world. Also, the requirements from, consumers like us. Right? Or we want new products, maybe faster. Yeah, we want to have access to this technology faster. And then also our machine builders need to react faster. And therefore I think they’re strong in in machine building. Yeah. And adopting automation there for example is already one part. But then even going further, I think, is not what they are really strong in. So they will and most likely need to partner.

BH: And do you think these partnerships will allow companies to stay focused on what they do best while still delivering complete machine solutions?

CG: Yeah, exactly. This is, and I think the same, applies for, as you mentioned, the partnership

between Siemens and SuperTrak. Obviously, also, there’s a strong, strong part of Siemens that does mechanical mechatronic components, but linear motion like supplied by SuperTrak is nothing that in a in the whole context that we have a history. So but this is a technology that is required by the market. For example, for a more flexible production, for fast format changes. So coming from as I said, I can produce one product for a year, but what happens nowadays is that you have to not every day but more regularly change your product. Yeah. And therefore you need flexible systems like linear motion technology. So that’s why Siemens, we have perceived this demand from our customers. And we’ve been looking for the best in class partners here as well. So once we are strong on the automation, you said with our TIA ecosystem, we were looking for someone who could bring the mechatronic component in there. And this is, as you said, both of us are somewhat best in class in their field. And, we bring this together to create really more value for our customers And again, we might have been able to develop this by ourselves, but the customers are demanding it today. And, I mean, this is something where I think we need to focus. And, this is a great example why partnerships really matter today.

BH: Yeah. To use a sports analogy, it’s almost like fielding a team where the best players are in each position. Could this player play two positions? Yes, but this is their best position. The other position they’re mediocre at. But really fielding a team of the best potential people

to do what you need to do.

CG: Exactly. Great analogy.

BH: Yeah. Okay. And let’s kind of dig into this SuperTrak example that you touched on there. So from Siemens perspective, what made SuperTrak a strong fit for deeper integration into your automation environment?

CG: I think both of us are market leaders in their technology. This is also, I think, when looking at it

from our perspective, we are looking for market leaders to partner with. So when we have been, let’s say, screening the market also for potential partners, it was quite soon quite clear that that SuperTrak has the right technology, but also the right experience and the right mindset in the team to go and in partnership with us here, both of us have been somewhat their strong product, their strong,  knowhow and expertise from previous years. We’re bringing that together. And this is, yeah, I think a great fit.

BH: Makes it a stronger team. Absolutely. And when we look at machine builders and when we talk about integration and real integration, what does that mean in practical terms from their perspective? Is it engineering, commissioning, long-term support? What is it and how does this partnership help them?

CG: Yeah, all of those obviously to fulfill the requirements. As we said, it’s the time to market. It’s the reliability of the system. And with the integration, we allow machine builders that are of course somewhat familiar with the Siemens technology in that case, but stay in that same environment to adopt new technologies like linear motion. The same actually applies for integrated robotics. So it’s something where in the past you would have maybe two systems. And by, integrating technology like SuperTrak’s linear motion by robot kinematics into the automation system, we allow the customer to stay in the same environment, let’s say. So they’re strong again. And then programing a Siemens PLC, for example. And we let them stay in their whilst at the same time we also give them the right tools to their hands that they need to, for example, simulate the machine. And here again is this is, I think, a great benefit that it’s not only the simulation then of, for example, the linear motion or certain part of the machine, you know, by integrating it into the automation ecosystem, we enable the customer to really see it fully holistically. So the complete machine and the track system integrates just like another portion, like a several axis, something like this I think really a great way to adopt the technology. And this is something that we also perceive as new technology might they might be, let’s say, a challenge to adopt that, there might be questions, there might be concerns when doing that the first time. And I think we lower the hurdle to adopt this new technology and integrate it into the machine with the overall integration.

BH: Fully agree. I think giving them the option to use familiar tools that they’re comfortable using

and they know how to use because everybody who’s ever done automation knows it’s complicated and complex. Any risk that you add is just going to potentially be a big headache down the road.

Everybody’s just trying to figure out, okay, how are we going to do this? What is the lowest cost. And then the path of least resistance to kind of getting it done. So 100%.

CG: And there’s also our one more,  important aspect is that you as the machine builder, which is from our perspective, our first customer, he also, I mean, you talked about the I this as well. This is also important. If you deliver a machine as a machine builder, also you need to be reliable. You have a certain reputation. And I think by the integration of the linear motion, the robots things like this into the automation system. We enable also the OEM, the machine builder to do service on his own. So he’s not any longer, dependent on maybe a third party supplier. And this is, I think, a very strong argument for our machine builders nowadays.

BH: Yeah. And I think how that then helps kind of the sales teams on both side of this partnership work better with machine builders and OEM customers. And I think having all of these kinds of questions ready to answer and really kind of providing that value is interesting.

CG: Yeah, definitely.

BH: From the machine business point of view, what kinds of everyday challenges does this kind of integration help remove?

CG: I think that’s an interesting question. I think the challenges we slightly touched on it already. It’s the time to market. It’s the time needed to integrate and adopt this technology. It’s from their customer standpoint, it’s the requirement for more flexible machines that adapt faster to new products, new requirement. And this again, is ultimately what, what drives us, to say, okay, what are the challenges of our customers? What are the challenges of their customers, and how can we overcome them? I think mainly it’s really, we need to look at it from a we call it total cost of ownership perspective. So looking at where can we save time and consequently money to integrate this technology, to realize, to build a machine and bring it to the customers, to produce parts on it, to produce, goods on it.

BH: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Kind of moving on to, to when partnerships make strategic sense and when to partner. How does a company know when partnering makes more sense than trying to build something internally. And we’ve touched on that a little bit but kind of elaborate a little bit.

CG: Yeah. There’s also two aspects to that, I think. I mean, the one I would need my commercial colleagues obviously to calculate on that, but I would rather look at the sales and the technical integration aspect. But looking at the speed of the technology and things like this, we had to open up and we did this already, I think. And this is a point where we, we realized that requirements from the market that we might not be able to immediately serve or fulfill. So what can we do? As we discussed before, we could start a development on our own. We could think about that. But again, the customers are requiring something today. And this is not only one time happening. It will happen more and more often now with new technologies. So we really need to look at the market. Where does it make sense to develop something by ourselves? Where does it make sense to form. And as I said, how do we know? When does it make sense? It’s really probably when you lose project, when you are not able to fulfill the requirements of the customer.

BH: From there, what kinds of misalignment usually causes partnerships to struggle or fail, like market focus, roadmaps, incentives, support expectations?

CG: Yeah, there probably a lot of hurdles you might face during the course of the partnership. I think one is wrong or unclear expectations on both sides. It takes some by experience. We we’re working with a lot of partners especially in my area rather with mechanical and mechatronic partners. But we also see that usually Siemens is rather a big organization having certain processes and expectations there. Then there’s coming a partner who’s maybe let’s say, a bit more agile, maybe a different, understanding. And to really bring together the expectations and the understanding of the partnership is crucial. So to set a common ground, let’s say, right, and really discuss, okay. What do you expect? What do I expect? How do we want to reach it? This is something you have to overcome in the beginning. Let’s say. Along with that is also different sales approaches. I might think oh this partner might open up a sales channel for me and vice versa. But also there turned out that it’s not that easy. Let’s say. Yeah, we really we have to discuss openly how to approach the market, who which partner is bringing in which position in different aspects for sales service, and so on. And by learning is that you really have to be very open to each other to really bring problems to the table, discuss it openly, and then you will kind of realize, and it’s that’s my approach to be really, authentic and open to, to the partners as well. You would realize that if it is a good partnership or how to even improve it.

BH: How to optimize it. Yeah, yeah. Because it comes to at the end of the day, it comes down to people. And I think being transparent and having a team of people who want to win and want to work together, I think can transform that pretty, pretty critically.

CG: Yeah.

BH: How important is it that both partners are hearing the same feedback from machine builders and end users?

CG: I think it is, part of the partnership is that you are one team towards the customer or you’re perceived as one team towards the customer. And therefore it’s also critical that you receive the same feedback. Talking about the challenges in the previous question as well, this is something that we obviously see as a challenge that the customers, the machine builders, for example, they ideally would love to have maybe one interface or one supplier. They do see the value, obviously, of the partnerships. And as we described when there is a need for this. But there’s also kind of a concern sometimes. Therefore it’s of utmost important to really be one team towards the customer, listen to them. And then we have to define also afterwards probably, okay. Who’s in charge of this challenge, this requirement, maybe because it’s not always quite obvious who needs to address this. And therefore I think to be together at the customers, listen to them and take the right, deviations what to do and how to do, is very important.

BH: Okay. I think that leads us into kind of next kind of areas of maintaining the partnership

or keeping it healthy over time. And how is that done and what has to happen behind the scenes for partnerships to actually work day to day?

CG: Described in few words honesty, reliability. I think, the way you interact with each other to be, trustful. Respectful. It is the basics. But as you said, it’s about people. And, this is really important. And what I’ve learned is that the true character reveals in hard times when you have a, well, you delivered a common project, for example, there’s some issues, challenges, and then the way the partners interact, in that case. This really shows, okay, is that a strong partnership or where do we have to improve maybe and then I mean, luckily it turned out so far that the multiple partners, we all had the same target. Yeah. We never let the customer down. This is I think this is most important. And then afterwards, everyone will recognize that, yes, we had a challenge, but we solved it together. And this will make us even stronger. And this is, I think, really important to to also have a long term partnership. In a very good way.

BH: It’s essential. Yes. And from my experience with this partnership, I can say again, it all coming down to people 100%. And I think when you have a team of people that you know well that you care about, you tend to want to help them. So you work as a team. So to your point of when you hit tough times, you don’t want your teammate to be the one who’s dealing with all this on their own. You want to help them. And I think when you when you have a team of people that care about each other, you want to win and everyone wants to help each other. And I think that is so powerful in terms of how you stay successful and how you win. Exactly.

CG: And there’s I mean, one thing is obviously as well, that it’s not only two people interacting or kind of a common go to market strategy, right? It’s more it’s on all levels, I think. I mean, obviously you start there’s a sales team trying to, to be very, convincing, let’s say, or to, to approach the market. But there’s also the technical teams in the background that you need to involve and especially in, in challenging times. Also about, talking about requirements or roadmap alignment and so on. Also, to have the technical team on board is super important because in the end, as you said, they need to help us as well. We need to talk to each other. We need to identify, who can solve the problem the best. And therefore we need on all levels, a very good relationship. And, also, this is something that that turned out to be super important and, and helps us also in the collaboration with, with Siemens and SuperTrak, where we can say on all different levels, I think we know whom to talk to. There is a personal connection. You can you can feel the spirit of the people as well. Yeah. This is, really cool.

BH: Absolutely. And I think kind of leading into the next question, how that helps with joint problem solving and helping the customers. And I think you need the technical team, the commercial team, to really solve the problem and understand the problem.

CG: Yeah, exactly. Otherwise, it will fail. Yeah. So this is, Yeah.

BH: Otherwise. Well, what’s the point of doing it essentially, and then kind of moving into partnerships and growth. Now, how do partnerships help companies reach machine builders and markets they might not reach on their own?

CG: I think this is also depends on the type of the partnership, obviously. I mean, we are talking about Siemens and SuperTrak, for example, probably in a more technological oriented partnership we’re addressing a certain industry or market, machine builders in assembly and packaging industry, for example, and for that specific kind, I have to admit that sometimes partners see, for example, Siemens as a big organization because they have a good access to markets as the potential entry point to customers or industries. And why I’m bringing this up is because I think we need to, collaborate on equal terms. First of all. Yeah. So it’s not about ideally, of course, we will open up more opportunities for all of us for both parties. Yeah, but this is not for me. The, the main target, let’s say ideally we can say there is a certain customer need in a certain industry probably that we both agree on that we want to tackle. Yeah. And then we they will open up some new opportunities around that. But this is more, let’s say the logical consequence. If you prove to be successful at one customer, at one industry, there’s obviously the chance to reach more customers. For me, what I learned over the past as well, just to again, it brings me down to to have the right expectation and aligned targets of the partnership, which should be, in our case, I think, technologically driven, of course, with a clear target to, to scale our other markets.

BH: And that’s interesting because do you think that that then has an influence on how machine builders are picking the kind of platforms and technologies that they’re going to use  in kind of long term thinking, you know, with the serial machine builders, for example, they’re building multiple machines. They want to do that for multiple years. So in the platforms that they invest in

are obviously very, very important to them. And do you think the strong partnerships help machine does that make those decisions?

CG: Yes, definitely. Because they will always logically compare what is the direct reputation, do I have experience with a certain partner? And again here we can help each other. Right. The one might be more, known in that one industry or for a certain technology, whilst the other is bringing in the new technology. And there we can really help each other and the machine builders there is a point where they have to also be, I would say they have to embrace the opportunities that come up with partnerships, even though they might opt for one single supplier. But even here, I mean, looking back 5 or 6 years ago during Corona (COVID-19), the delivery crisis that we had, right. That showed I mean, it’s not about partnerships, but it showed that you have to be open, you have to be flexible. And I think this is also what our partnership proves. We’re bringing together great technologies. We have great reputation. And this ultimately helps our customers, the machine builders, to deliver their machines faster with higher technology.

BH: Yeah. And do you think then, that that helps innovation happen more easily in our industry? With these kinds of partnerships, you have two strong players innovating better. Do you think that impacts innovation as a whole? I don’t know if it makes it really faster. Yeah. No. As you know, the, the, the industry or certain industries are rather conservative, but it helps at least to, to, start the discussion, going to think about and I think again here how I perceive it, we need to or you need to sometimes have, some, some lighthouse customers maybe, or some early adopters that prove to the market that a technology is working and then is feasible, for example, and then, over time, you will probably get access to more and more customers being ready for this. I was just saying, obviously, that the partnership itself will not accelerate innovation per se, but it will definitely help start it going.

BH: Get it moving. Yeah, because I almost look at partnerships as almost a little bit of insurance or diversity in terms of what you’re doing, because to your point, I would say manufacturing is a very low risk industry. Production machines need to run what is the lowest risk way to make them run, and introducing new technology has been a challenge in my experience in the last kind of 25 years. It takes time. But when you have multiple companies pushing the same solution, it’s like Siemens, SuperTrak or ATS kind of coming together, the more people that are kind of in line with the solution, the more the customer kind of feels at ease with that kind of innovation. And they’re looking to the future, the future of partnerships in manufacturing. Do you see manufacturing moving towards more open platform oriented technology ecosystems, something like what we’ve see in maybe the IT industry where the standards are kind of accepted and then you kind of build things around that.

CG: I think it’s, it’s a big question, concerning the manufacturing overall, to my understanding, this is still a bit unclear. For the sake of the willingness is there or the idea or the goal is there, but, there’s still a lot of dependency. There’s, there’s so many things to think around. Yeah. And then, I mean, having worked in the related automotive industry for quite some time, again, they’re quite conservative. Yeah. And talking about, platform oriented systems, open technologies. This is nothing that they really adopted in the recent years. Yeah. So there is of a change in thinking, but this will most likely still take some time.

BH: Agreed. Agree. And I and I think how these partnerships then evolve over the next 5 to 10 years between automation suppliers and machine builders. I think we’re seeing a lot of volatility

in world markets in how demand manifests for these kinds of industries. And like, what do you think in the next 5 to 10 years, do you think these are going to become more critical in terms of being successful?

CG: I think the relationship or the collaboration will change over all in a bit from again previously there was a supplier customer relationship somehow, while we also perceive that more and more of our customers, machine builders are talking about partnerships, even though we still supply material to them, maybe, but they perceive also us as more as a partner. And I think this is a trend that we can that we can see that it’s not about selling or delivering products any longer. No, it’s more around it’s a solution, it’s a promise, it’s an invest into future technology as well. This somewhat will change. And along with that, we also discuss with customers about new business models for example. So again this is quite interesting. Right. So and then talking about also our partnership I mean how in the end if an end user is producing on a machine that is built by a machine builder that is equipped with Siemens technology and SuperTrak, and in the end it’s a SaaS model that is running on the machine. So those are the things that are quite interesting. So how can you monetize that? How can you track that down? And this will definitely change the way we interact with partners, with customers, suppliers in the future.

BH: Interesting. And then kind of from that, what advice would you give a machine builder when choosing a technology partner? Is there any kind of criteria that’s almost essential?

CG: Maybe I’m a bit biased here, working for Siemens, being a well known, and, and reliable brand. I think, what I perceive as well is this there’s a lot of new technology, and customers are curious to test, adopt, to change it. Maybe. But we also see that the, the, the landscape is not only changing, but there are new players coming up, but also disappearing quite fast again. So you certainly need to have a solid base. But in in many aspects, probably. Talking about the automation supplier, the, the supplier for example, the automation platform, SuperTrak, talking about cloud suppliers and so on. So there’s this obviously what I see and think is there needs to be strong partners that are then able to give a stage or lever, let me say the smaller ones maybe, or the innovators. Yeah. And that’s what I think I’m biased. Obviously Siemens is a great choice to build your automation platform upon. But we also said we opened, we have our, for example, Siemens Accelerator. It’s kind of a business platform where we have a lot of partners already on board. And this, I think is a win-win because it gives reputation to the partners. It’s giving gives our customers more confidence in choosing a partner that it has been kind of preselected that works along with our tools. That’s why I think this this will be a criteria to be ready for the production or the machine of the future, to have a good mix of well known partners as well as other startups and new technologies.

BH: Interesting. Okay, I think that wraps up kind of my questions in kind of what I wanted to talk about. Is there anything that you kind of want to leave us with? Well, I think I can only say, I think we need to embrace this whole partnership and ecosystem mindset. So we need to open up. We need to be ready for that. And, yeah, I’m quite confident that SuperTrak and Siemens are giving a great example here. And I’m looking forward to drive this forward in the, in the next years and, maybe talking to you Ben in some years again, reflecting on what we discussed today.

BH: Yeah. What we learned. What we, where we were successful. I think it’s partnerships, from my experience, have been fun. There’s a lot to learn. There’s kind of new markets to explore. It kind of keeps things interesting from my perspective. Christian, I really want to thank you for taking the time today to join us and for sharing your perspective on how Siemens approaches partnerships and collaboration with machine builders. So thank you very much. We really appreciate it.

CG: Thank you Ben, it was a pleasure talking to you.

BH: I think what today’s conversation really highlights is that partnerships aren’t just about logos on a slide or joint marketing announcements. They’re about making life easier for machine builders, reducing risk for customers, and enabling better machines to be built faster and more reliably. When partnerships are done well, they allow each company to focus on what they do best while still delivering a complete solution to the customer. And as manufacturing continues to evolve, that kind of collaboration is only going to become more important. So thanks again to Christian for joining us and thanks to everyone for listening. We’ll see you next time on Enabling Automation.