MARTIN BY HARMAN
MARTIN BY HARMAN: LONDON TO BUDAPEST With Harman Professional Solutions making some major changes to manufacturing and R&D in the Martin Lighting arm of the business, TPi’s Stew Hume travels from the company’s London Experience Centre all the way to the manufacturing plant in Pécs, Hungary, to get the lowdown.
As you drive into the carpark of Harman’s Hemel-Hempstead office, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is yet another anonymous industrial park on the outskirts of London. However, once you pass through its glass doors, you step into a showcase room unlike any other. Due to the sheer scope of the Harman brand – not to mention the reach of its parent company, Samsung – you find that its products find their way into a variety of industries The London Experience Centre, which houses a selection of ‘sets’ to demonstrate the various uses of its products, shows off the sheer volume of solutions that it can deliver to its customers. From a mock retail outlet that uses the latest custom recognition software to provide tailored adverts, to the hotel rooms with the latest Smart Technology giving a glimpse into future hospitality. From the world of live touring, Harman demonstrated the latest JBL VTX A12s, on the live stage demo complete with a Soundcraft Vi2000 and a lighting rig with a collection of Martin by Harman fixtures. The later was actually the reason for TPi’s visit to the London headquarters, to hear from some of the Martin team – including Peter Skytte, Director of Lighting, as well as our tour guide for the next few days, Harman’s Director of Global Communications, David Glaubke – about the future of the lighting branch of the organisation. Since Samsung’s acquisition of Harman in 2017, a great deal of work has gone into fine-turning the Martin Lighting side of the business. During the initial evaluation stage, the company created three goals: to optimise its R&D footprint; to improve product differentiation; and to boost the amount and speed at which new products come to market. To achieve these goals, Harman went about consolidating its assets both in terms of people and locations. In 2017, there were over 14 engineering sites across the globe. This has now been concentrated into six locations, and the overall R&D engineering base for lighting has been boosted from 42 to 64 with the ability to rapidly scale up using engineering expertise deployed in other areas of the business. Since the reorganisation,
Martin’s R&D footprint is now split between two sites. One is the Centre of Competence (CoC) in Denmark, which focuses on technology-enabled key differentiators in products, while the other is the Product Development (PD) centre, located in Shenzhen, China, which focuses on engineering excellence and fast project execution close to supplier base. “Denmark is where the company is really pushing the future of lighting and where the technology will be in three to five years and beyond,” stated Glaubke, giving an overview of some of the changes within the company. “We have already got to see the result of this consolidation with the release of the MAC Allure. “Then we have the Shenzhen operation, which is all about taking that engineered product prototype from Denmark and developing it further to bring it to market quickly, efficiently and cost effectively – ultimately to be built and shipped to customers here in Pécs.” The message coming from Martin is that of streamlining its development and manufacturing process. It’s worth noting that this framework has also rolled out across the other divisions in the Harman family. Each arm of the Harman brand informs the others in the development of new products. “Cross-division learning at Harman drives innovation in profound ways.” commented Glaubke. “For example, what we’re doing in Professional Solutions to develop the future of professional audio can impact developments in lifestyle and car audio. “Conversely, the technology that Harman is creating for the connected car can influence development for Professional Solutions, such as in live events or hospitality industries. No other audio, lighting and control company has that level of access to engineering.” During TPi’s time in the London, we got to hear about some of the latest innovations taking place under Martin’s roof, including future light source with alternative sources and new cooling technology. To see the procedure first hand, TPi left Harman’s London facility and boarded a plane heading to Pécs, Hungary – a small town a few hours’ drive from Budapest city centre. Having opened in spring 2016, the Pécs facility 89
