Fast-growing GE group gets special attention

Starting in January, General Electric started looking more like a high-tech incubator. Telling Wall Street it was realigning, the $316-billion conglomerate said it would supply its seven fast-growing business units with additional money for R&D and possible acquisitions.

GE Infrastructure is one of its newest growth creations.

"We are definitely the high-tech beneficiaries of that change," explains Kevin Roach, VP of the new GE Infrastructure business unit's GE Fanuc Automation. GE Infrastructure is a combination of what GE says are the "fastest-growing business platforms" in its stable: products for the chemical treatment of water; security products ranging from business security to explosives and narcotics detection; sensor technology for monitoring, protection and control; and factory automation—i.e., GE Fanuc Automation.

The platforms address, says Roach, four of industry's most pressing problems: pure water, safe facilities, plant automation, and detecting physical changes in the operating environment. However, he was mum on future R&D funding and says that beyond organic growth, he couldn't speculate on acquisitions. But in the recent past, GE Fanuc has had a healthy acquisitions appetite, last year buying Intellution, a supervisory control company; and data historian vendor Mountain Systems. Mountain Systems' branded solution, Proficy, could appear soon across the GE Fanuc product line.

In terms of synergy, Roach sees the GE Infrastructure combination as a tactical opportunity for a cross-sell of solutions. The high-tech, high-growth grouping should post $3.5 billion in sales this year, GE says, with an MSI estimate of more than $220 million coming from GE Fanuc—a combination of GE's plant automation software and Japan's Fanuc controllers.

William A. Woodburn, GE Infrastructure CEO, brings experience implementing Six Sigma at GE's abrasives business unit and, given his time at GE Capital and GE Capital Equipment Management, should have the GE notion of working cash discipline or "cash rigor" as a mantra down pat.