The CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) has appointed Roy Kok as senior partnerships and alliance specialist to enhance the organization’s ever-growing global channel of industry-leading automation vendors. The popularity of the CLPA’s open industrial communication technologies, and the number of partners, has been steadily increasing year-on-year. To support this continuous expansion, the new position will strengthen the infrastructure and business value proposition for new and existing partners. In his role as senior partnerships and alliance specialist, Roy Kok will be responsible for driving new business initiatives across North America aimed at growing participation in the CLPA.
This is a key role, as the goal of the organization is the global advancement of open, interoperable information and communication technologies to support end users with state-of-the-art solutions. Roy Kok will also help strengthen Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory Alliance program, where members cooperate to offer flexible, optimized automated solutions for customers across a wide variety of industries. Roy has worked for over 30 years in industrial automation as a technical and commercial senior specialist. In his previous roles, he successfully established valuable partnerships and OEM relationships, which has provided him with a unique understanding of industry needs and vertical markets.
Bringing this knowledge and experience with will benefit all companies that are members of the CLPA and e-F@ctory Alliance as well as their customers. Thomas Burke, global strategic advisor at CLPA, commented, “Roy is an outstanding addition to our team, as he brings a deep understanding of developing strategic alliances and what it takes to deliver partner success. With an impressive track record of translating strategy into tangible results, he will play a key role in growing our community and benefits to our members, delivering on a partner-first approach. Expanding the reach of our open network technologies globally is crucial to enhance the level of interconnectivity, interoperability and flexibility that the market is demanding.
Roy’s drive and expertise will serve our network well as we continue to grow.” He continued, “The business value proposition for CLPA coupled with the e-F@ctory Alliance initiative is to help our customers succeed in the digital transformation. Bringing Roy to the team will allow us to focus on supporting our partners in building a complete ecosystem to support the smart factories of the future. As a result, we can provide products and more importantly solutions for industrial automation.” Roy Kok concluded: “I am thrilled to join the CLPA and honored to help lead an organization with such an excellent reputation.
The CLPA’s family of open industrial network technologies are used globally. The fourth industrial revolution is an exciting time for the association, which is addressing the needs of the future with CC-Link IE TSN, the first open industrial gigabit Ethernet with Time-Sensitive Networking capabilities. My work will help strengthen the position of the CLPA and its members as global leaders in industrial automation.”
About The CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA)
The CLPA is an international organization founded in 2000, now celebrating its 20th Anniversary. Over the last 20 years, the CLPA has been dedicated to the technical development and promotion of the CC-Link open industrial network family. The CLPA's key technology is CC-Link IE TSN, the world's first open industrial Ethernet to combine gigabit bandwidth with Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), making it the leading solution for Industry 4.0 applications. Currently the CLPA has over 3,800 corporate members worldwide, and more than 2,000 compatible products available from over 340 manufacturers.
Around 30 million devices using CLPA technology are in use worldwide.