Rudered! deja de postear en el hilo, que es para mayores de 30 :P
yo tampoco tengo claro lo de las estructuras societarias de las emrpesas de distribución energética. Pero tampoco me interesan, bastante tengo ya con poner a funcionar el dinero para que luego me lo devuelvan en forma de dividendos jjjj
Rockwell hace automatización industrial
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Rockwell Automation: This Article Has Been Automatically Generated
By M*_Ste phe n 12-04-12 12:16 PM
Productivity is one of those things that's easy to talk about, but sometimes hard to attain. I am sure
everyone has been a procrastinator at one time or another. Maybe you're procrastinating on a project
right now just by reading this article. That said, improving our own productivity can be fairly
straightforward; it could be as simple as finding a quiet area to work and stopping time-wasting
activities like surfing Facebook. For factories though, improving productivity can be an incredibly complex
undertaking, costing millions of dollars, with potentially far-reaching implications if things go well, or if
things fail, disastrous consequences.
Fortunately for manufacturers, there's an entire industry built around factory automation. Rockwell
Automation (ROK) is one of the leaders. Rockwell is still fairly small in the overall scheme of things; we
expect it to generate about $6.4 billion in revenue and just over $1 billion in operating profits in 2013.
This is peanuts compared with giant competitors such as Honeywell, Siemens, and ABB, where revenue
is measured in the tens of billions. However, this shrimpy industrial has used a compelling automation
platform, knowledge of its customers’ needs, and an in-depth understanding of factory equipment
design to take share from these giants over the past few years.
Despite Rockwell's status as a "boring" industrial, the story is quite exciting. Rockwell's automation
platform, Logix, nearly seamlessly melds the traditional manufacturing discrete, process, and hybrid
manufacturing disciplines. Factory automation over the past few decades has largely been driven by
using machines to replace what was once done by human beings. However, that is now changing, and
today's automation firms are developing solutions that don't just automate one process or one part of
the factory, but work across the entire floor and offer up a highly integrated product that places a
number of new tools (remote monitoring, energy savings, productivity improvements, safety, and so on)
in the factory operator's tool belt. At its core, Rockwell and its integrated solution, Logix, offer up a
powerful value proposition for its customers, including faster time to market, lower total cost of
ownership, improved asset utilization, and the ability to better manage the safety of its workers and
meet regulatory standards. We think this kind of customer value proposition makes for an interesting
investment opportunity.
The Disciplines
Rockwell's products can be loosely separated by manufacturing disciplines. The first is discrete
automation, which focuses on defined motion processes on countable items, which is what we see in a
sorting line or a packing item. Production steps typically occur one after another; the automotive
industry is a great example of discrete processes, as it relies on assembly lines. Discrete manufacturing
firms typically use equipment from multiple providers, and each machine comes with its own software,
which often requires a resident engineer to properly program. A typical project for Rockwell for discrete
efforts would be adding variable-speed motors to a piece of equipment, which allows it to be run
continuously at optimal speeds rather than full speed (on) or not at all (off), which means energy
savings for the factory owner.
The next manufacturing discipline is process automation. Process jobs typically might be used in
refineries and mining, where there is a continuous feedstock and the output is homogeneous. Typical
applications for process automation might be managing the temperature, flow and pressures on the
output or equipment. These types of efforts tend to be more complex for automation firms, as there is a
high cost of failure component. Thus, the automation suppliers need to work closely with the customers
to ensure that any refinery-specific requirements are met along with setting up high levels of
redundancy to accommodate any potential system failures.
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The final discipline is sort of a merging of the discrete and process applications called the hybrid
discipline. In the past, process and discrete jobs would be served by different automation firms, given
the very different job requirements, different end markets and customers, and level of customization
required. The best example here of a hybrid process is a brewery. In a brewery, Rockwell might handle
everything from optimizing the steps for following the recipe, thus reducing waste, to overall ingredient
management and ensuring the appropriate temperatures and pressures are maintained throughout the
cooking process.
Logix Is the Logical Choice
What is the Logix system? In a nutshell, we can describe it as the following:
· An architecture that integrates process, discrete and hybrid disciplines into a single offering.
· The integration of information between the plant floor, business enterprise systems, and the
external supply chain.
Over the past decade, Rockwell has invested more than $1 billion in Logix, its technology platform that
essentially serves as the "brains" of the factory once implemented. The up-front system design needs
to be customized for the specific factories and industries, and Rockwell has tens of thousands of
engineers who specialize in particular industries and various niches to ensure a smooth process.
Rockwell engineers, in some cases, are embedded in the customer's factory and work there for years.
Furthermore, the architecture's open-source nature means it can integrate seamlessly on top of
competitors' software without requiring the factory owner to rip out the existing software and shut
down production lines. This is important as many of Rockwell's installations are "hot," where the
automation offering is implemented while the production runs or processes are taking place, which
means the factory doesn't have to incur any additional shutdown costs or lost productivity.
We also think the near completeness of Rockwell's Logix architecture across the discrete, process, and
hybrid disciplines means that customers who adopt it will be extremely loyal. The complexity and
expense of adopting Logix across the production floor means that the factory owner is highly likely to
stick with Rockwell for decades. Given the complete nature of the Logix offering versus the single
production processes the firm was targeting previously, the switching costs for Rockwell's customers
are now markedly higher. Risking a disruption in the production lines for a slightly cheaper automation
offering is not in the cards for Rockwell's Logix customers.
Understanding Rockwell's value offering to customers is not straightforward, so some examples may
help. First, let’s review Rockwell's work with Pemex, one of the world’s largest producers of oil and gas;
it needed Rockwell to implement a digital monitoring and control system at one of its platforms in the
Gulf of Mexico. At the time, Pemex's monitoring system was creating false alarms and shutdowns and
was too slow in identifying equipment failures, creating unsafe working conditions and excessive
downtime. Rockwell improved the overall system redundancy and provided networking technology that
let Pemex better assess the use of its resources on the platform through better reporting and data
record keeping, which dramatically improved uptime. Rockwell implemented this system while the
platform was still operating, which can be likened to changing the engine in a car while it is still running.
Another example is Fonterra, the world's largest exporter of dairy products. Fonterra processes billions
of gallons of milk every year and engaged Rockwell in an effort to deliver yield and quality
improvements. Fonterra is constantly challenged to accommodate ever-larger quantities of milk and
converting it in the most efficient manner to value-added products. The problem was that the firm would
sample the milk during the production process and then would have to go back and make offline
adjustments to ensure the milk was meeting specified production quality-control specs, which was
inefficient. To figure out how to improve things, Rockwell and Fonterra conducted feasibility studies on
the operating efficiency of its dryers and evaporators. The conclusion was that installing advanced
controls on the dryers could be beneficial, so an online grading system was installed that let Fonterra
conduct in-process testing and allowed the results to be measured and reported in an understandable
way. The system let Fonterra view the composition of the milk and ensure it met the firm's specifications
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as well as budget goals in real time. It also let Fonterra dispatch the milk immediately at the end of the
production process rather than wait for the sampling and testing to be completed. The end result is a
60% return on investment for Fonterra, with production improved about 5%-15%, product quality
increased by 50%, and energy efficiency raised by 5%-12%.
Risks
Despite its highly attractive position in automation, Rockwell does face risks. As an industrial, it is highly
sensitive to the health of the global economy, particularly the automotive sector. In 2009, revenue
declined nearly 25% and operating profits fell more than 50%. However, perhaps the biggest
competitive challenge is keeping Rockwell ahead of Honeywell, Siemens, and ABB. All three companies
have the capital to invest in research and development and building up their own offering similar to
Logix. Furthermore, all three face competitive threats as Rockwell gradually encroaches on their
customer bases with its multidisciplinary offering while these firms continue to largely focus on process
or discrete automation.
At this stage, though, the group has a large mountain to climb, in our view. While Rockwell's $1 billion
investment in Logix seems fairly easy to duplicate, the investment took place over a decade, which
meant that Rockwell has had time to refine and improve its automation offering. We think the decadelong
tinkering and learning process that Rockwell has been through will be harder to replicate than the
initial $1 billion investment. Furthermore, control systems typically last for 20-30 years, which means
once Rockwell gets its Logix system implemented, it will be a very long time before a competitor gets
another crack at the business, particularly as the Logix system is robust enough to handle the entire
factory floor. The longer it takes for these firms to come up with a competing solution, the more time
Rockwell has to infect its customer factories with the rapidly replicating Logix virus. Nonetheless, we'll
be keeping a close eye on any new automation offerings from ABB, Honeywell, and Siemens that come
to market.
Valuation
Morningstar's fair value estimate for Rockwell is $85 per share, which implies a forward 2013 enterprise
value/EBITDA multiple of 10 times as well as a forward 2013 price/earnings multiple of around 15 times.
At $77 per share, Rockwell doesn't trade at a significant discount, but we think the Logix story and the
resulting improving competitive advantages make for a compelling investment. Revenue growth is
unlikely to set the world afire, with about 6%-8% annual growth being the norm, but we see the
revenue growth as fairly durable as it will be supported by continued market share gains. Returns on
invested capital are also highly attractive at around 25%, indicating that Rockwell has a very nice
business model that stands out amid many industrials, where the more typical returns on capital are in
the low teens. We're also pleased to note that capital allocation has been superb over the past
decade, thanks not only to the Logix investment, but more recently, Rockwell's return of around $500
million per year to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. This investment is more than
half of Rockwell's operating cash flows. Given the low investment needs of the business, as annual
capital spending plans are typically in the $120 million-$140 million range, we think capital allocation will
continue to be shareholder-friendly. Look for us to consider a Rockwell position in the near future.
--Stephen
Saludos
