First contact
Dear robotics enthusiast.
I remember when we visited the museum of a local car manufacturer in primary school. That moment I got infected by the fascination for robotics. There were two orange robots located at the top of the building. Later, at university, I had the chance to intern at KUKA in the U.S. where I learned some robot programming and operation which came in handy for my thesis as I set-up a robot cell at the laser institute and welded with up to three sources at once.
After my degree I worked on a research institute where we measured path accuracy of robots for first laser applications in automotive industry and where I also experimented with laser guided bonding and with hardening. However, I wanted to make the move into the industry and started as project engineer in the automation team of the local machine tool company Gebrüder Heller.
Machine-Tool Industry
I remember my first project very well! I was responsible for the automation of a complete manufacturing line for an automotive OEM. Since then, I know what the value of a specification is – and how it feels if you can’t sleep at night.
The next years I moved more and more away from automation and learned a lot from different requirements of our global customers. During a short episode at a mould maker company, I learned a lot about die and mould industry and the art of achieving quality (and about automating the injection moulding process).
Later I came back to the machine tool business and worked for Japanese machine tool company Makino where I was responsible for product management and for marketing in Europe. There I learned a lot about dedication, and about quality in the highest level.
The long and winding road
During my time in different machine-tool companies, I gave customer training, developed new process, restructured departments, developed service concepts, took care about all aspects of marketing and I traveled the world.
I worked with customers in China, had the chance to open a sales and service office in Russia, went with customers to Japan, was in Brazil, the U.S. and all over Europe. I appreciate spending time with global customers as they tend to challenge you in ways you never thought about.
After more than a decade in the machine-tool business and after leading teams between 5 and 16 people in size from the time I turned 30, I decided to go back to automation. I had the possibility to start at KUKA as a business developer being responsible for the machine-tool industry.
Back to Robotics
Coming back to the automation business in 2018 felt like coming home and the challenge is the variety of customer requirements I must deal with every day. A challenge which increases due to the current pandemic situation and the shortcomings in the supply chain.
The future is automated.
This statement is more evident today than it seemed to be two years ago. While companies are working on reshoring their production in order to gain additional security, automation is the solution to do this in a cost efficient and competitive way. The second huge impact is the shortcoming of skilled labour which is really pushing automation to a whole new level. This is a topic we need to address together. We as parents need to show the beauty of technology to our kids.
Next Steps
I am glad that you found this blog and I’ll appreciate it if you leave a comment. If you register to my newsletter you will make sure you will be the first to get the latest insights into robotics, smart automation.
I am open for collaborations. During my career I have frequently been giving speeches about latest developments in our industry. I also get great joy from talking to kids about technology, their ideas about robotics and how to become an engineer. If you want to discuss on management level about automation concepts, I will be happy to support you as well.
Sincerely Yours
Andreas