09/23/2021

HOMAG Asia Moves Into New Singapore Office; Gears Up To Strengthen Presence In The Region

As of June 2021, HOMAG Asia has moved its operations to its new office at the Nordcom ll building at 2 Gambas Crescent. Formerly located at Sungei Kadut Loop in northwest Singapore, HOMAG Asia now operates out of a more modern office building and shares a space with Agramkow Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, their sister company under the Durr Group.

The 6,700sqft office houses a total of 27 HOMAG employees and seven Agramkow employees. A key figure at HOMAG Asia is Lorenzo Marcaccioli, who joined the team as Sales Director in February 2021 after over 16 years of sales and product management experience in the woodworking machines industry.

Marcaccioli gears up to strengthen HOMAG’s presence in South East Asia’s market. In light of the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Marcaccioli has identified several key opportunities that could drive success in the months to come. “Especially in countries where business has come to a standstill with lockdowns and factory closures, it is important to take the opportunity to increase our knowledge,” shared Marcaccioli. “We invest this time by continuously organising training sessions to increase the knowledge of both sales and service team members. While it is currently not possible to visit customers and share our knowledge in-person, we aim to emerge even stronger when we are able to get back in touch with customers at their factories.”

Besides increasing knowledge transfer among its employees, the company constantly engages existing and potential customers, albeit remotely. From 10 May-10 Jun 2021, flagship digital event Live.HOMAG presented over 200 live online events ranging from product demonstrations, Q&A sessions, to even 3D showroom tours. They have been advancing their infrastructures with new technologies to keep in touch with their customers. They can now quickly arrange live demonstrations in all of their showrooms around the world showing details of the machines with high resolution cameras that give superb audio and video quality in their remote presentations.

HOMAG’s globalisation strategy – even from pre-pandemic times – has helped transcend language barriers and border restrictions. “HOMAG, even before COVID-19, has invested a lot in the direct presence of our company in South East Asia, and we have branch offices in almost every South East Asian country,” said Marcaccioli. “Each branch office has qualified sales and after-sales teams, as we believe that it is important to be closer to our customers and listen directly to their needs speaking the same language. This strategy has proven helpful during the pandemic, as local qualified technicians are able to immediately assist with on-site machine installation and troubleshooting.”

Additionally, HOMAG aims to not just provide machinery but a suite of full solutions – from factory analysis to factory design and software. In terms of software, Marcaccioli was pleased to introduce Intelligent Virtual Platform (iVP) – a new 3D software developed by HOMAG to simulate factory revamps and allow customers to visualise their “dream factory” without having to travel to a physical one. Using virtual reality, a mock-up of the floorplan and complete machine lines can be generated according to customer requirements, desired productivity and output.

The HOMAG team recognised that amid the opportunities, several industry challenges are taking the spotlight. Firstly, especially due to the pandemic, many customers are currently unable to work in full capacity. Their focus has then shifted from mass production to increasing efficiency and flexibility, and reducing direct and indirect costs. Another important point is the shift towards Industry 4.0 – not just the implementation of automation in machinery, but also utilising software and the Internet of Things to analyse and use data to automatically improve efficiency of machines and workflows.

As part of the Dürr Group, HOMAG upholds “sustainability” as one of the guiding principles for the company strategy.  HOMAG specifically develops low-consumption and low-emission products and constantly updates processes to reduce the ecological footprint of factories. The EcoPlus function is a standard feature of its machines, as they do not make any compromises between the cost and environmental benefit.

As part of its “sustainability” duties, HOMAG is expanding into business areas that help their customers manufacture sustainable products. This includes production technology for wooden house and timber construction elements. HOMAG Group has recently acquired a few companies already in this industry, System TM and Kallesoe as complementary products to Weinmann’s range to form the new Solid Wood Processing business unit.

Hence, leveraging over 60 years of experience in the woodworking industry, and 40 years of setting foot deep into the Asia market, HOMAG continually invests in new product development especially within the region to get closer to their Asian customers. There is much to look forward to in the coming months, concluded Marcaccioli, hinting that several products that are under development and will be launching specially for the Asian market.

“Many people think that European companies have factories in Asia – especially China and India – just to produce cheap solutions or low-cost solutions of European products. This is completely wrong for us at HOMAG,” clarified Marcaccioli. “Our factories in Asia do not just produce existing products from Germany; we really develop new products and software for the Asia market by marrying German design with the efficiency of Asian manufacturing.”

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