Rare look inside an Irish plant leading the instrumentation world
Endress+Hauser: A global leader in measurement instrumentation, whose Irish customers include chemical, food & beverage, life sciences and water and wastewater companies.
Endress+Hauser is a Swiss process instrumentation company proudly serving the Irish market since 1980.
 A global leader in measurement instrumentation and services for industrial process engineering, and employing over 14,300 worldwide, it provides solutions measurements in the areas of pressure, level, temperature, flow and liquid analysis.Â
The company’s five product centres with headquarters in Germany and Switzerland focus on know-how in research and development, marketing, logistics, technical engineering and production.Â
At these sites core components are manufactured for worldwide production. Plants in Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US assemble, test and calibrate instruments mainly for regional markets, helping Endress+Hauser to serve customers quickly, flexibly and individually anywhere in the world. Customers in Ireland range across a wide variety of industries, including chemical, food & beverage, life sciences and water and wastewater.
 According to Service Manager Finbarr O’Neill, Endress+Hauser brand values are encapsulated in four key words - commitment, friendliness, excellence and sustainability.
 “These words equate to a journey from start to finish and the successful outcome we strive to achieve on every job we undertake. Many of our team members, including myself, have been with the company for significant periods of up to 20 years, which underlines our commitment to the job and the company.”Â
Comprising third level graduates from institutions such as Cork Institute of Technology and individuals who have apprenticed and served their time through the ranks, employment in Ireland currently stands at 31. Quality and continuous improvement is a priority at Endress+Hauser, striving for exemplary standards in its products and services - regardless of which facility they come from.
There are three tiers of activity around Endress+Hauser products, comprising Support, Service and Optimisation.
 “Support covers work-related to diagnostic and repair, either on-site or coming back to our manufacturing base for investigation or overhaul. Service covers calibration, maintenance, commissioning, training and engineering. In effect, anything that complicates or impedes production.”Â
Optimisation relates to the more enhanced functions around service and maintenance based on advanced Endress+Hauser skill sets offered for the greater benefit of clients.
 “Effectively, we help clients to improve their processes by unlocking the physical field into digital data to generate valuable process knowledge for their decision making.”
 “We differ from other organisations in what we do and how we do it,” Finbarr explains of the Endress+Hauser service principles. “From its infancy, Endress+Hauser has always had a very strong service department that has consistently stood to the company. When we sell instrumentation into large projects, we aim to be part of the commissioning of those devices or to integrate ourselves with the teams involved.”
 As part of the company’s optimisation ethos, it is all about bringing greater efficiencies from build to start up in the most orderly and structured space of time.
 “By embedding ourselves into those structures it means if there are issues on sites, we can immediately respond to them and achieve quicker solutions. Ideally, we remain close to our products throughout their lifecycle and can provide service support to cover customer’s needs.”
Founded in 1953, Endress+Hauser was a true pioneer in electronic measuring technology which has continued to 2020 with trailblazing products and solutions. The company’s industrial expertise and detailed application knowhow leads time and again to pioneering developments and supports for customers in the transformation into the digital future.
At Endress+Hauser, education does not stop at academic qualification, Finbarr points out.
 “The training and development of our skillset is continuously expanding, so we are constantly engaging with where technology is moving to. Because the technology is always advancing, we need to be constantly on par with these advancements. Consequently, this know-how feeds into our work practices and provides customers with tangible innovation. Meeting the challenge of new processes and technologies is one of the most rewarding aspects of the work we do.”
 With a sales and service capability that is unparalleled in the marketplace, clients and end-users find themselves immediately reassured by the long-established Endress+Hauser commitment to the highest standards of product and service.Â
“We know that we successfully tick all the boxes relating to pre- and post-sales, and over the years our service personnel have built up very strong relationships right across our client base. Indeed, we are proud of the fact that when we walk onto a site, we have an enhanced and trusted profile established over many decades.”
 For Finbarr and his service colleagues, brand value is not just about coming in, doing the job and getting off the site: “We try to invest ourselves in all of the activities we are involved in. We become very close to our clients and the challenges they face, and delivering on our sales and service commitments is a hugely important part of what we do.”Â
Endress+Hauser has taken comprehensive measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The health of employees, customers, partners and the public are a top priority.
 Dedicated to ensuring supply and service to customers in Ireland and worldwide, a task force is coordinating the ongoing support, attending sites to keep processes running or through the Visual Support app which enables audio and video communication via mobile and computer devices. In the acute phase of the pandemic, customers were able to take advantage of the remote audio-visual support free of charge.Â
“Throughout the pandemic, our teams have remained very close to our customer base in providing support and essential services at all times.”
