Emerson opens new Design & Engineering Facility in Pune - Emerson Design Engineering Center

New Facility Signals Emerson’s Commitment to India as a Center for its Global Engineering Needs

PUNE – Emerson (NYSE: EMR), the U.S.-based diversified technology and manufacturing company, celebrated the official opening of its new state-of-the-art design engineering center in the Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Hinjewadi, Pune. The new Emerson Design Engineering Center (EDEC) signals the company’s long-term commitment to India as a center for its global engineering needs.

EDEC provides product and software design and engineering services for Emerson’s divisions worldwide. EDEC was Emerson’s first corporation-wide engineering center when it was created and is now its largest such facility.

In 2003, Emerson established its first design engineering center in Pune with 16 employees. The new facility in Hinjewadi now has more than 500 employees and performs a wide range of engineering work for all of Emerson’s business groups.

In recognition of the growth and importance of the facility, Emerson’s corporate headquarters in the United States sent two of the company’s top executives to the inaugural event in Pune -- Ed Monser, chief operating officer, and Dr. Randall Ledford, senior vice president and chief technology officer. They joined Dr. Amit Paithankar, an Emerson vice president and EDEC’s director, in officially opening the facility in front of VIP guests including the distinguished scientist Raghunath Anant Mashelkar.

Ed Monser, chief operating officer, said, “This facility is a sign of our commitment and investment in India. Emerson has been in India for nearly thirty years and we have a special relationship with this country: it is about business where we have greater growth in the last five years than any other emerging market country, and about talent where we’re looking at EDEC as an investment that will drive innovation and new product development.”

The Emerson Design Engineering Center was created by the company to provide five key benefits: faster time to market, flexibility and cost advantages, intellectual property protection, an ability to produce product platforms that are truly global, and enhanced domain knowledge and experience with Emerson processes.

Dr. Randall Ledford, chief technology officer, added: “The key drivers for global engineering have changed. A few years ago, India was seen as a destination for low-cost labor. Now it is known as a base for high-end engineering talent, located inside an emerging market where innovation thrives. We anticipate that this facility in Pune will be the source of many new Emerson products and solutions that we will sell around the world.”

The new EDEC facility has presently a total of 152,000 square feet of space with significant possibility of expansion. It includes a 1,540 square-foot data center with 125 servers and a fully redundant network infrastructure, 15 laboratories with more than 20,000 square feet of space, as well as a cafeteria, recreation room and gym/fitness room for employees.

EDEC’s director, Dr. Amit Paithankar, concluded, “I am very proud of this new facility which is a state of the art centre of engineering excellence. It has been designed and developed to encourage a culture of innovative thinking that will play an important part across Emerson divisions around the world. It is a great addition to Pune’s growth story and a fantastic place to work. And I am confident that this facility will house some of the best engineering projects across our company.”

Emerson (NYSE: EMR), based in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to create innovative solutions for customers through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and appliance and tools businesses. Sales in fiscal 2008 were $24.8 billion.