Bosch bullish on growth in North America

Components, technology and services company Bosch says its business in North America continues to develop very well. In the first six months of 2015, it has recorded a significant increase in sales in the region, in which it employs nearly 29,000 associates.

“Based on the current economic situation, we expect to continue growing through the end of the year,” said Dr. Werner Struth, the board of management member of Robert Bosch GmbH responsible for the Americas. In 2014, Bosch already managed to increase its total sales in the United States, Canada, and Mexico in nominal terms by 8.6 percent to 8.5 billion euros (Rs 64,974 crore). Adjusted for exchange-rate effects, the increase was as much as 9.3 percent.

“We are on track to double our sales in the Americas by 2020,” Struth said. All four Bosch business sectors in North America are performing very well. Mobility Solutions and Industrial Technology have been especially successful, Struth said, and the Consumer Goods and Energy and Building Technology business sectors are recording stable growth.

Continuing investments in the region

Over the past ecade, Bosch has invested approximately 2.2 billion euros (Rs 16,816 crore) in expanding research and development and local manufacturing. Bosch wants to continue expanding its activities in North America over the next few years as well. “We are planning to invest nearly 370 million euros in North America in the current year. This commitment underscores the region’s importance to the Bosch Group,” Struth said. In August 2015, the company will officially open a new plant for thermotechnology in Tepotzotlán, Mexico. The site has been producing gas-fired instantaneous water heaters for the Mexican and Latin American markets since June 2015. Plans also call for expanding the Bosch plants in Juárez, San Luis Potosí, and Mexico City, Mexico in the years ahead. 
Bosch already further strengthened its local presence last year. In the United States, for example, the company opened its first communication center in Fort Lauderdale, while to the south it began operating a new software development center in Guadalajara, Mexico. This software development center offers programming and application services for the automotive industry and Bosch plants in North and South America. “A strong local presence is crucial in being able to make the very most of opportunities in the region,” Struth said.

Opportunities with connectivity and automation
In North America, Bosch believes that the areas of connectivity, automation, electrification, and energy efficiency in particular harbour great potential. As a result, the company is a leading provider and exponent of connected industry in the United States. At the plant in Anderson, South Carolina, Bosch is optimising its production processes by analyzing big data, for example. The site is also using smartwatches for its manufacturing activities. These high-tech devices promptly notify associates if a machine malfunctions. Thanks to real-time monitoring, it is possible to prevent disruptions to the manufacturing process and thus gain additional production hours. As a member of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), Bosch is working with a number of American and other partners on concrete use cases of connected manufacturing.

Apart from Germany, the United States is another key location for Bosch in terms of its efforts to further develop automated driving. Since 2011, a team in Palo Alto, which is located in Silicon Valley, has been driving forward the development of functions for the necessary software and sensors, while colleagues in Abstatt, Germany, are responsible for systems integration in the vehicle. Bosch has been performing automated driving tests on public roads since early 2013. So far, engineers have successfully driven several thousand kilometres on both the German A81 autobahn near Stuttgart and U.S. Interstate 280 in California.