customer is king (future by semcon magazine # 1 2013)

A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE # 1 2013

future by semcon

#1 2013

AFTER WORKname Pär Ekströmage 41at work Research within electricity/electronics at Semcon Göteborg. after work Dances folk dance, tango and the Lindy Hop, and is chairman of the Göteborg Folk Dance Circle. current challenge Developing the folk dance movement and attracting more younger dancers.

PÄR EKSTRÖM:

“Dancing is like being a child again”About me“I’m an open, results-oriented and keen person who likes honesty and getting things done. I live in Majorna in Göteborg with my partner Pernilla Stenvall and our daughter Rut, who was born in November.”

About my job“I’m a civil engineer and have worked for the Semcon Group since 2004. Right now I’m working on research projects within electric-ity/electronics.”

About folk dancing“Eight years ago I decided that I wanted to try something new in my free time. I started dancing tango and loved the fact that it was spontaneous, free and fun.

I was introduced to folk dancing by a col-league who took me to a folk music festival in Ransäter. I expected that all the ladies there would be 10-15 years older. But my friend tempt-ed me with barbecues and beer. When I got there it turned out that I was right about the age difference, but the girls were 10-15 years younger instead. It really got rid of my prejudices!

Today I am chairman of the Folk Dance Circle in Göteborg and coordinate the city’s twelve dancing associations. I am involved thanks to a passion for dance, but there are also ideologi-cal reasons. Folk dancing is a non-profit move-ment and thus an important part of society.”

What I’ve learnt through dance“Dancing gives me a different perspective, travel opportunities in Europe and the rest

of the world and it puts me in contact with a lot of different categories of people. At work I just meet engineers, but dancing has absolutely no relevance to people’s jobs. The whole folk dance movement is an idealistic contrast to the commercial interests at work - here two parallel worlds meet.”

ABOUT: PÄR’S FAVOURITE DANCES: TANGO, POLSKA AND LINDY HOP• Tango is a dramatic ballroom dance for couples developed by immigrants in Bue-nos Aires in the late 1800s.• Polska is a dance in 3/4 time that has been danced since the 1400s. • Lindy Hop, a swing dance also known as the jitterbug, developed in the 1920s and 1930s in Harlem, New York.

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IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION?

JAGUAR LAND ROVER LISTENS TO THE CUSTOMER

INTEL’S GENEVIEVE BELL CHANGES OUR VIEWS OF TECHNOLOGY

SAFER MONEY AT THE BANK WITH NCR

BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING.

CUSTOMER IS KING

2 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013

CONTENTS #1.2013ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON


FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 3

40 MEET SEMCON’S SHARPEST MINDSIn Semcon Brains you will meet Hanna Zielinska, an oil expert with intuition, Panajota Vasilopoulou, who ensures that the right medicines are supplied to pharmacies, and William Jones, who keeps track of all the pieces in a gearbox.

28 GROUNDBREAKING HEARING AIDSCochlear’s bone-anchored hearing aids have improved the hearing of 100 000 people around the world. Semcon is helping to develop the next generation of hearing aids.

Website: semcon.com Letters: Future by Semcon, Semcon AB, 417 80 Göteborg, Sweden. Change of address: [email protected] Publisher: Anders Atterling, tel: : +46 (0)70-447 28 19, email: [email protected] Semcon project manager: Madeleine Andersson, tel: +46 (0)76-569 83 31, email: [email protected] Editorial production: Spoon. Editor: Katarina Misic. Designer: Mathias Lövström. URL: spoon.se Repro: Spoon. Printing: Trydells Tryckeri, Laholm. Translation: Cannon Språkkonsult AB. ISSN: 1650-9072.

EDITORIAL

Competing with customer relations

C ompetition in most industries today is so tough that you can’t afford to ig-nore your customers. Instead, today’s businesses are doing everything they

can to keep their customers. They know that the cost of attracting a new customer is much greater than keeping existing customers happy.

The methods for achieving these good cus-tomer relations have evolved dramatically with the internet and social media. For many compa-nies, this has opened up new business oppor-tunities, for others it has meant that they have seen their market share shrink as competitors use technology in smarter and better ways. Be-ing good at communicating with customers has become as large a competitive factor as develop-ing new products and services.

In this edition of Future we look closely at the role customer relations plays for various compa-nies, and the methods and opportunities avail-

able to them. We have also visited Jaguar Land Rover’s training academy in the UK to see how they facilitated the use of new technology in their new Range Rover model, in order to build up customer relationships and their brand.

You can also read about the caravan of the future, secure cash in banks, bone-anchored hearing implants and also meet Genevieve Bell from Intel, an anthropologist whose job it is to convince engineers of what the future will really look like. 1

30 AN ANTHROPOLOGIST AMONG ENGINEERSGenevieve Bell has been named as one of the world’s most creative people. As an anthropologist at Intel she gets en-gineers to look at the future differently. A future where technology is about people.

34 THE CARAVAN OF THE FUTURE IS HEREThe entrepreneur Bill Davis wanted to develop the ultimate caravan to attract new customer groups to the roads. The result: the prize-winning Tripbuddy. To help him, he chose Semcon.

MARKUS GRANLUND, CEO, SEMCON


PEOPLE #1.2013PEOPLE IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON

patric svensson, design project manager, semcon swedenWhat role can industrial design play in customer relations?“A product that is appreciated by the user, both emotionally and functionality-wise, strengthens the brand. The user - the end customer - has a positive at-titude to the product and thus the company producing and selling the product. Industrial design is the key to a success-ful product and an important link between the user and the company.”

Good, long-term customer relationships are vital for business, and new technology offers new possibilities. Meet some of the people in Future by Semcon talking on the subject of customer relations.

ian luckett, global product training manager, jaguar land rover, ukWhat are the challenges in introducing new, user-friendly technology in cars?“To ensure customer satisfaction and to maximise the use of technical features are the main challenges for the introduction of new, user-friendly technology in vehicles. To achieve that, you need to make sure that the customer understands what the technology does and how it is operated.”

fiona mcdade, senior solution manager, ncr, scotlandHow can your cash solutions for banks help their customer relations? “Our machines simplify cash handling by taking care of evaluating, counting and sort-ing the notes, which means that staff have more time for the customer. The security of using our note machines allows banks to become more retailer-like, without bul-letproof glass and bars between customers and staff.”

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panajota vasilopoulou, senior quality consultant, semcon sweden

How can the pharmaceutical trade improve its customer relations?“In this industry, customers take it for granted that manufacturing

and packaging is done according to the existing tough laws and regulations. Therefore it is doubly important to ensure quality, so as

not to damage, but to strengthen the confidence the customers feel.”

mark flynn, director of research and applications, cochlear bone anchored solutions, swedenHow important are customer relations in your work to develop better hearing aids?“Customer relations are absolutely fundamental in this area. The great majority of our research activities are completed in collaboration with universities and surgeons and other academics and clinicians. Without their time and input and our ability to work together, the pace of innovation would be much slower.”

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william jones, dimensional management, semcon germanyWhat role do you think customer relations will play in the car industry in the future?“Customer relations are the be-all and end-all. Trust and brand loyalty have always been important in the car indus-try and I think they will be even more important in the future. It’s what can distinguish one company from another. Customer loyalty and confidence takes years to build, but is easy to lose.”

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LONG LIVE THE

CUSTOMER!

Merely selling good products is not enough to

become a successful business. To beat your competitors, you have to

know how to build customer relationships which last long after the sale is made. Whether it’s about new experiences, superior service or big data analysis – more than ever, the customer is

king of the business world.TEXT MARCUS OLSSON

Y ou hear a voice in your headphones saying that there are only a few hun-dred metres to go. The vol-ume of the music increases and you get a final moti-vational push. The same second that the workout

is over, you have synched your data with the online database by pressing a single button on your smartphone. Aspects such as dura-tion and calories burned are now statistics on the Nike+ website. Millions of people around the world are ex-periencing the same thing every day. Around eight million users log in to the Nike+ community every day. With the help of user data from products such as the Nike+ Sport Watch GPS – simply a jogging watch with GPS – Nike meets its clients every day. On the running track, in the sports shop, on the golf course, in the gym, on the way to work, at home, on the basketball court, on the road, in front of the computer or in the living room.

“Nike is becoming a company that isn’t just focused on products, but is focused on products and services. It used to be that when you bought a product, that was the end of the relationship. Now, the purchase of any Nike product needs to be the beginning of the relationship we have with the consumer,” says Stefan Olander to Fortune. He is responsible for Nike Digital Sport, a department which barely existed a few years ago but whose ser-vices in 2011 seem to have driven up sales by 30 percent.

NIKE’S DIGITAL JOURNEY, however, started in 2006. Nike engineers noticed more and more students at the Oregon campus walking

“Before, you would buy a product and that was the end of the relationship. Now the purchase of a Nike product is the beginning of the relationship we have with the customer.”

Stefan Olander, Nike Digital Sport

FOCUS:CUSTOMER IS KING

around with an iPod. Nike set up a meeting with their counterparts at Apple to discuss a simple idea – synchronizing jogging data with an iPod. Steve Jobs loved the idea. Nike+, and soon, a whole new world of opportunity

for Nike was born. Nike now has direct contact with its customers through

interactive channels such as Twit-ter and Facebook. Everything is closely linked to Nike+ services. The company has nearly halved its

advertising expenses in Ameri-can newspapers and television in the past three years, and annual sales are over $20 billion – about 30 percent more than adidas, its

nearest competitor.“Nike interacts with things which the cus-

tomer values, such as personal training and the wellbeing of the individual. If Nike were pressurizing you all the time to buy from them, you would probably start to dislike the

company. What Nike has succeeded in is not only selling its products, but in getting you to like the brand. Nike wins market share against companies that aren’t going as far, and haven’t made the decision until too late,” says Colin Shaw.

He is an expert in customer relations, ranked by the business network LinkedIn as one of the world’s 150 most influential peo-ple, and counts companies such as Allianz, American Express, Microsoft, Federal Express and Volvo as his customers.

“It’s actually quite simple. If you don’t build long-term relationships with your cus-tomers, you won’t survive. The business cli-mate is becoming increasingly globalized and sales more difficult. We will see continued

The gadgets which launched Nike’s digital

journey. One sensor for the trainer and one for the iPod.

CASE STUDY

Southwest Airlines“We see ourselves as a customer service company which happens to fly airplanes” is one of Southwest Airlines’ mottos. Personal service is one of the main reasons that it has become the world’s largest low cost airline. The “Bags fly free” campaign was a success in 2009. Southwest distanced them-selves from their competitors by allowing passengers to take two bags on-board for free. They have also streamlined the boarding and disembarking processes. It takes 20 minutes to empty and board a Southwest plane with new passengers from the time it has taxied in. The airline is America’s most popular. Income in 2012 was $620 million.

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technical development. All while the limits of what is possible are being stretched, and this affects what you have to do in order to not fall behind your competitors. You have to tie customers to you through the experience you create with them and the feelings they have for your business.”

THIS NEW BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT means that it is not enough just to offer attractive products. Companies now have to take into account and use new technology to keep in contact with customers. For those companies which have fallen behind in this development, this leads to difficulties and losing ground on their competitors. However, most of all it means new opportunities for those who succeed.

Apple is a company that has proven to be a master of controlling its customers’ experi-ences. In addition to its user-friendly prod-ucts, the Apple Store is one of the meeting places where Apple builds its long-term cus-tomer relationships. While competitors were focusing on resellers and direct sales over the Internet or by phone, Apple thought differ-ently. Its founder, Steve Jobs, created a brand

new store and product experience: spaciously-designed shops with technically knowledge-able staff. A purchase became more than just a transaction between seller and customer.

“Apple has a huge advantage over all its competitors. They work with multi-channel experiences in a way that no one else does. I should be able to feel at home when in the Apple world, whether I use an iPad, an iPhone, or visit an Apple Store. The challenge for any company trying multi-channel experiences is getting different parts of the organization to collaborate, because the same people are not working on every product at the same time,” says Shaw.

Perhaps the most important feature is that customers are able to experience and use the products in the store before purchasing them. Apple’s 395 stores worldwide nowadays gen-erate annual revenues of USD18 billion.

“I always feel that when I’m in an Apple Store, I’m not just in a shop. It feels like being

at a club,” Shaw says. “It gives the customer a genuine emotional attachment. This is the path to success now and in the future, the reality that everyone has to work with. For many, it will require a different approach from today and not every business will survive the transformation process.”

CREATING EXPERIENCES through new technolo-gies and new services is part of the future of customer relationships, but an equally impor-tant part is the old cliché “get to know your customer”. The difference today is that oppor-tunities to get to know customers are endless, thanks to “big data.” This concept has existed for a few years, but it is only recently that it had a serious impact, particularly when one of the topics at the World Economic Forum in

FOTO: NIK

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Patric Svensson is a design project manager at Semcon in Göteborg. One of his successful design

projects is for a hearing aid. Normally this is a gadget that you want to hide, because it signals a handicap. But this one almost looks like an earring and

comes in four different colours.“It was a good sign for us when we

heard about a grey-haired woman who chose a black aid instead of silver, because she liked it and wanted to high-light it,” says Svensson.

An industrial designer is usually

involved throughout, from the concept until the product ships. At a time when it is rarely possible to make revolutionary steps in the development process, it is the small improvements that determine how a new product will be received.

It is in the research work and contact

Patric Svensson sees industrial design as the way to the customerA user-friendly and stylish product that works – according to industrial designer Patric Svensson this is foundation of a good relationship between customer and producer. Thinking design all the way from concept to production is the key to success.TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM PHOTO LARS ARDARVE

THE EXPERT

Patric SvenssonTitle: Design Project ManagerOffice: Semcon, Sweden

with users that the largest opportunities exist. How do they experience current products? Are they user-friendly? What would they like to improve?

“The result of the initial research was used to create a design platform, a docu-ment that streamlines the way work continues. We don’t spend a lot of time on design ideas before we and the cus-tomer know what we want to do.”

They develop a concept which is then processed into a finished design – all the time using the design platform as a support. When the designers’ work plays more of a role, Svensson and his colleagues are by their side as support in the whole process.

“We follow up the design intention so that the perceived feeling is what was intended.

Industrial design is used in all kinds of products, from small hearing aids to large machines. Design, regardless of the product, instils a sense of quality – the product is well thought out. It strength-ens confidence and thus the brand.”

“Identifying seemingly small problems early in the research process can lead to significant benefits with the finished product and the user’s experience of it. It shows that you care and is a key to good customer relations.”

A recent example is a patient handset for hospitals with a range of functions. Everyone, regardless of age and physical and mental status, must obviously be able call for help, so they have high-lighted the ergonomic alarm button in a tactile and visual way. But there is also a smaller attention button to use if you want a glass of water, for example.

“Right now there is only one button for all alarms, which can lead to patients feeling that they are interfering and make it harder for nurses to prioritize their work. A seemingly small detail such as the attention button can create better conditions for both nurse and patient,” says Svensson.1


sumers about ourselves, which is attractive to advertisers. However, Google is the clearest example of a company that has achieved its

dominance and customer relation-ships by using big data. Their algo-rithm, a secret as well-kept as the recipe for Coca-Cola, showed the world the potential of big data.

The journalist Andreas Ekström wrote the book Google-koden (“The

Google Code”), and lectures on the internet giant.

“Without big data, there is no Google. It is a prerequisite for the

success and existence of the company. Nobody has systematized our entire internet life like Google. They have created a definition of what the internet looks like. As internet users, we currently try no other search engine. People even see Google as the internet.”

Practically everyone who has used a com-puter has Googled. Google currently has

89 per cent of the search engine market share, more than 50 000 employees and a market value of over $200 billion. But no-one in the company is interested in talking about its recipe for success.

“Google is open about a lot, but in terms of customer work and customer relations it works on a local level according to the market and so we therefore cannot draw any “general” conclusions. Most of it is due to the fact that we have a very desirable product, and also Ad-Words and YouTube,” writes Emma Stjern-löf from Google Sweden’s communications department in an email response.

Google’s edge when it comes to building new, long-term customer relationships is a strong competitive advantage.

“There are 200 other excellent search engines. There are good email, map and docu-ment sharing services. There are competitors in every area in which Google operates. But

no company can catch up,” claims Ekström.

THE BUSINESS CONCEPTS of bof internet companies are based on the ability to handle big data. But the potential of big

data extends far beyond the internet world.Tony Baer is principal analyst at Ovum,

one of Britain’s largest analysis and research companies. He has seen the big data land-scape redrawn over the past decade.

“Internet businesses have always been tracking their customers’ habits and prefer-ences. The trend now is in the increase in the use of big data. It is increasingly used to opti-

Davos in 2012 was “Big Data, Big Impact” which stated that big data is a new economic asset, such as money or gold. Simply explained, big data is information collected from sources such as social media, web browsers (where our surf-ing habits leave traces), sensors and monitoring technology. In an online world, everything is traceable. The snag is that the amount of data is enormous, hence the term “big”. According to IBM, consumers today create as much information in two days as they did since the begin-ning of civilization up until 2003. So the next problem is, of course – what to do with all the data available?

FOR INTERNET COMPANIES with big data as a business concept it seems simple. Come up with a clever algorithm and start reaping the benefits of big data. Amazon and Facebook are two companies that have become big thanks to the management and analysis of big data – they know what books you buy (and many other things nowadays), who you know and where you are. Their value lies in the information that we provide con-


“As internet users, right now we’re not trying any other search engine. People even see Google as the internet itself.”

Andreas Ekström, journalist and author

CASE STUDY

LexusJust a few months after the launch of Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand in the U.S., they were forced to recall 8,000 cars when a fault with the cruise control was detected. It is said that you could almost hear the cheers from Stuttgart and Detroit when competitors got wind of the problem. Lexus wrote a letter of apology to all its customers. Local dealers collected each car and the customers got a free loan car until the repair was completed. All the re-paired cars were returned freshly washed and with a full tank. If there was no Lexus dealer in the neighbourhood Lexus staff flew to the customer and fixed the problem on-site in the customer’s own garage. In January 2013 Lexus sold 16 211 cars in the U.S. market – an increase of 26.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.

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Googlekoden by Andreas Ekström.


lected data ranging from product and design development to information from dealers and customers in a single analysis centre. By combining data from different sources, it is easy to get indications of problems that could be costly later on.

“Before it gets out into, perhaps, 500,000 units, we can stop an issue when spotted in the first 1,000 units. And that’s a much less expensive thing to do. Plus, few, if any, customers are impacted and their positive experience of the brand remains intact.” Volvo’s ability to interpret the data makes a significant competitive advantage according to Strader, who now works for Ford.

Ford itself has, with other big shot brands like BMW, VW and Audi, also begun to look at how big data can open up new opportuni-ties with the industry.

“We have sensors on cars today that sense temperature, pressure, humidity, and local concentrations of pollutants – but what else can we do with these new sensors? This is a huge untapped opportunity for us. That’s a huge unexplored opportunity for us. Can you build better weather forecasts? Can you make better traffic predictions? Can you help asthmatics avoid certain areas? Can you con-trol the airflow in the car? We recognize that we’re just kind of scraping the tip of the ice-berg here,” said John Ginder at Ford Research to SiliconAngle.com.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT AREA for big data with manufacturers such as Honda and Ford is in electric car development. Information from electric cars teaches engineers how and where drivers load their cars, which not only affects the next generation of electric cars, but also how the infrastructure for electric

vehicles can be developed. The value of this information has created opportunities for new businesses, such as Ecotality in San Francisco, which analyzes data from 5000 electric cars driving 45 million kilometres and which charge at their charging sta-

tions across the US.“We are digging deep into the psyche of

these electric car pioneers,” CEO Jonathan Read told Forbes.

However, the cars of the future are already being built using big data. Bosch, the world’s largest supplier to the automotive industry, is currently developing technology for one of

mize customer relationships and is spreading to other industries. The challenge for these companies is to build and manage big data systems, but also to find the skills, talent and creativity required to interpret the data.

ONE INDUSTRY TRYING to create new types of cus-tomer relationships using big data is the auto-motive industry. Within this industry, customer relations have traditionally focused on service and after-sales – to help customers maintain and repair their vehicles, whether cars, trucks or construction equipment. This has proved to be an important development, not least because there is big money in increasing after-sales ser-vices, thus making sales figures less crucial.

Volvo Cars is one of the automotive com-panies that has managed to transform big data into pure knowledge, and you see how it has affected customer relations work. A few years ago the company realised that it faced signifi-cant challenges in the collection of massive amounts of data generated from their cars by sensors, GPS, telematics and other technology in the increasingly online car.

“There is a compelling opportunity to turn that resource into something that not only helps us build better cars, but also helps the customer have a better experience,” said the former IT director Rich Strader.

Hundreds – if not thousands – of sensors scattered around the vehicle capture and read the data generated during use. Volvo has col-

“It’s one thing just to sell a product, but quite another to sell complete solutions.”

Andrew Allen, CEO, Bosch Sweden


CASE STUDY

ZapposThe U.S. internet shoe seller Zappos is world-famous for its devoted customer service. The staff in customer service receive seven weeks’ paid training and are then offered 2000 dollars to quit – just to ensure that the correct, motivated people meet the customers. Zappos encourages customers to order additional sizes because a free return 365 days after purchase is seen as part of the business concept. The company also has the record for the world’s long-est customer service call: 8 hours and 47 minutes. Since starting in 1999, the com-pany has grown into the world’s largest online shoe store (now owned by Amazon), largely thanks to its take on customer service.

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the first autonomous cars. If the company succeeds in its plan, it will have the chance to make future drivers reliant on a whole new driving experience that will be both safer and more comfortable.

“Big data will play a large role,” says Andrew Allen, CEO of Bosch Sweden. “An autono-mous car carries out real-time analysis and sees things such as changing road condi-tions as they happen. The car will sense the changes and adapt to them.”

In an autonomous car system vehicles have to communicate with each other and ex-change information.

“Bosch has been around for 126 years, but we are always asking ourselves how we can add value for our customers. It’s one thing just to sell a product, but quite another to sell complete solutions.”

HOWEVER, THERE ARE serious potential risks associated with getting to know your cus-tomer – that you can get too close. With the opportunities presented by big data, new technologies, new services and experiences

Apple controls its customer experiences with an iron fist, which is particularly visible in their Apple Stores around the world. (Photo: iStockphoto)

comes an increased risk.Andreas Ekström sees dangers for companies

dealing with large amounts of information.“Google handling big data in a sloppy way is

the only threat to them right now. If they were to lose all our emails one day, or sell our dis-ease-related searches to insurance and health-care companies, they could lose customers.”

There are already examples which show the sensitivity about the collection of big data. The US retailer Target asked its customer analysts if it was possible to see if women were pregnant using big data. This would cre-ate opportunities to target tailored product offerings to an important group of consumers.

“This went so far that Target received a com-

plaint from a father who wanted to know why the company was sending coupons for nappies to his teenage daughter. He was angry and thought it was improper to send offers to a young girl who, furthermore, was not pregnant. It turned out later, of course, that she was,” says Colin Shaw, a customer relationship expert. He continues:

“We will see more of this sort of thing. The company’s plan is to figure out what we will want to buy or need in the future. Everything is based on buying habits and the choices we make when we encounter

companies on their various platforms.”At the same time, the thing that has

enabled big data has also given customers a stronger voice. As Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, put it: “If you make custom-ers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

ALONGSIDE NEW EXPERIENCES and big data, ser-vice remains the cornerstone of many com-panies’ customer relations. Being available for support, questions and complaints, taking care of repairs and returns or going the extra mile to get customers to return could prove to be crucial for companies to survive in the future. Again, new technologies have opened up opportunities that previously did not exist – from previously having been about personal encounters, more customers today expect 24-hour availability, the ability to contact the

company via email, text, chat or social media, rapid response and personal service. One of the challenges is to manage these demands with limited resources.

“Our advice is simply to underperform rationally, in the areas your customers value least,” said Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, authors of “Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business”, to Forbes.

“This is the pattern among service leaders in every industry we’ve studied. It turns out that winning service companies aren’t great at everything. They’re bad at some things, but the pattern isn’t haphazard. It’s mapped tightly to their customers’ priorities.”

If your customers prioritize low prices, it is reasonable to expect them to assemble their own furniture or select food from warehouse shelves. If your customers prioritize speed and convenience, they are willing to sacrifice personal encounters in physical premises in favour of user-friendly self-service online.

CUSTOMER RELATIONS EXPERT Colin Shaw sees a future where companies can become even closer to their customers by using new tech-nologies.

“Whether it’s about a car, running shoes, technical equipment or the internet, long-

term customer relationships will be the most successful. But not everyone is work-ing on this. And this is about the attitude of management. The challenge is moving from being product-centred to being customer-centred, says Shaw, continuing:

“If you log in to social media you will see many companies providing their cus-

tomers with multi-channel experiences. However, the majority of people are not really there yet – they don’t use the new channels fully. Customers aren’t aware of them. The companies that succeed in attracting these people are the winners of the future.” 1


“It’s about the attitude of management. The challenge is to move from being product-centred to being customer-centred.” Colin Shaw, customer relationship expert

CASE STUDY

StarbucksThe classic coffee chain Starbucks experienced financial difficulties in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and decided to make coffee drinking a customer experience. Free internet access, sockets at the tables to charge mobile phones and computers and larger tables for groups and meetings, were part of the strategy to make their cafes meeting venues and workplaces. In a collaboration with Apple, music played in Starbucks cafes is available on iTunes, while flat screens in cafes show which artists and songs are being played. The tough years are not quite over for Starbucks, but new customer experience has become increasingly impor-tant to the world’s biggest coffee chain in order to compete.

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Finding information happens in a completely different way nowa-days. Before, you went to the

bookshelf and looked it up in a book, now you google it online. It is this

altered behaviour that Fredrik Larsson and his team at Graphics, Service & Owner’s Information bring to industry. Traditionally, a car will have a printed manual in the glove compartment.

Larsson helps customers develop solutions which give car owners fast and relevant information when it is needed: on the mobile, on an e-reader, on a computer or on a screen in the

Fredrik Larsson increases customer value by focusing on the aftermarketThe aftermarket is increasingly important in the battle for customers, particularly in the automotive industry. And the focus is on satisfied customers. Fredrik Larsson knows what it takes to create aftermarket products that lead to improved customer relationships.TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM PHOTO LARS ARDARVE

THE EXPERT

Fredrik LarssonTitle: Team Manager, Graphics Service & Owner’s InformationOffice: Semcon, Sweden

car. These solutions are also cheaper for the manufacturer to produce.

“If I have to go to the mountains the next morning and want to check something in the evening, I won’t have to go out to the car and fetch the user manual,” says Larsson.

Many companies contact Semcon about which digital solutions are techni-cally possible.

“The information should be as relevant and good as possible. Digital solutions are a means to make information more accessible and user-friendly, and to meet the demands of the future.”

He personally works mostly on owner information for Volvo Cars and the new Chinese automaker Qoros Auto. The challenge is to minimize the time between question and answer, as most people want a quick answer to a specific problem. With the mobile phone apps that Semcon has developed for Volvo Cars, there are different ways to go to find information: partly via different key-words, partly through images that you can click on directly – so-called hotspot images. For example, if a warning light comes on in the instrument panel, you click on a picture on your phone and get the information you need.

“It is also possible to customize information and products for different markets or different seasons, or give you information on where you can buy spare parts nearby.

The automotive industry is at the fore-front in this area and has seen the bene-fits of being able to operate a business in which the car owner, for example, books in for a service through their own system and within its own dealer network. It is also much easier to get feedback on the information and hence make continu-ous improvements. All to create satisfied customers.”

“There is great potential in using digital aftermarket information in many other industries, and we are working to develop new solutions together with our customers.”1



Today’s cars are packed with new technology. The latest Range Rover is no exception. But new technology is only useful when the customer understands how to use it. Therefore Jaguar Land Rover sought Semcon’s help.TEXT GITTAN CEDERVALL PHOTO CHRIS GLOAG

HOW IT WORKS


ave you ever sat in a new car and attempted to perform simple functions such as starting the engine, turning on the navigation system or listening to music from your smartphone? Fairly soon, it turns out that it isn’t always easy. The race between today’s car makers is in full swing in terms of new technical features and functions to dif-ferentiate their models from the competition. The customer experience is not always para-mount. Jaguar Land Rover has realized the im-portance of not only developing such features but also listening to customer reactions.

“New features only provide a lasting com-petitive advantage if they are used, used prop-erly and therefore appreciated by the custom-ers. Otherwise, technical functions can be annoying for the driver, and that’s a problem for our industry. We want all our customers to feel comfortable with new features if they want to use them,” says Ian Luckett, Global

Product Training Manager at the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) training academy in Warwick, UK.

THE COMPANY’S latest Range Rover model, which went on sale in January 2013, is packed with new technical features, and to ensure that they were explained to customers in the right way, JLR already had an established, long-standing collaboration with Semcon, which over the years has evolved to include more and more areas. Today, Semcon is responsible for the production of all owner handbooks and dealer technical information for all of JLR’s vehicles. A joint project was set up to tackle information issues with a view to make new technical features more user-friendly.

“We started off by identifying the features that require additional user support and then focused on creating hands-on instructions on how these features should be used with short video clips,” explains Emma Sweet, Global

Training Project Manager at Semcon Kineton, for what is internally called the HTO (How to operate) project.

“The areas we deal with are very different from other technical issues. If a component is faulty, you take it out and replace it, but in our case it is mostly about finding a way to explain things. For this project our starting-point was to find out what the customer doesn’t understand or feel comfortable with,” says Ian.

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND your customers you need to consider the demographics. For instance, you need to be aware that a younger people typically is more tech-savvy than an older people. Most young people have grown up with smartphones and don’t need hand-books to know how to use them. This is also an advantage when they get into a new car, where they are met by an interactive touch-screen.

H“We want all our customers to feel comfortable with new features if they want to use them.”

Ian Luckett, global product training manager at Jaguar Land Rover’s training academy


Emma SweetTitle: Global Training

Project ManagerOffice: Semcon UK


The screen is the users’ interface with the infotainment system, the vehicle’s hub which consequently sits at the centre of the dash-board. After all, it is from here that most of the vehicle’s features are controlled.

“Because the infotainment system plays such a central role it also represents circa 80 percent of the support area. Consequently several of the videos we have produced deal with this system,” says Emma.

Step-by-step instructional videos which can be downloaded from the JLR website form the basis for the solution chosen by the HTO team. A special graphics and animation team at Semcon has been responsible for its development and creation.

The instructional videos have been posi-tively embraced by JLR’s customers. When asked if they found the video clips useful 97 per cent of the customers offered a positive response. 75 per cent wished to access the

instructions via the JLR website, whilst 78 per cent wished for access via the infotainment system in the vehicle.

“This will be possible through a new help button which we intend to add to the screen. The help button, and coach mark, will provide access to a matrix of help functions, on call from a user-friendly menu. We will also be adding more and more levels of information. We hope to introduce the new on-screen help button in 2–3 years,” says Emma.

ADDITIONAL STATE-OF-THE-ART information fea-tures, introduced for the first time in driver handbooks for the latest Jaguar model, are the Quick Response (QR) codes. Scanned by a smart device these bring the driver straight to the relevant instructional video.

The navigation system and the Bluetooth connectivity, expected as standard in new vehicles, are some of the features controlled

via the touch-screen that require the most in-depth explanation in the video clips.

“Customers expect new features all the time, and often they expect more than they actually understand. It’s our job to bridge that gap,” says Ian Luckett.

The Bluetooth connectivity has led to a problem for the demanding automotive indus-try. It takes between three and four years to de-velop a new car. Other technology moves faster. The development cycle of a car is long enough for the launch of several new mobile phone models. Still customers expect their mobile phones to work in harmony with the vehicle.

“People are married to their phones. If their phone doesn’t instantly work with the vehicle, they blame the vehicle, not the phone. What they don’t realise is that it may not be the fault of either. It is simply a matter of compatibility which usually is easily solved, and it is important that the dealers handle

Ian LuckettTitle: Global Product Training Manager Office: Jaguar Land Rover’s training academy in Warwick, UK


this issue at an early stage and make sure that the set-up is correct for the co-functioning of phone and vehicle,” says Ian.

THE JLR ACADEMY is responsible for all training needed to support the vehicles. This includes training of service engineers, sales staff and dealers. However, the instructional videos are targeted directly at the customers.

“Dealer training is very important and it is something which we take very seriously. But sometimes we by-pass the dealer and go straight to the customer.”

“Ten years ago the average customer made ten visits to the dealer when buying a new car. Now, customers only make on average 1.4 dealer visits,” says Ian.

With information so readily available on the internet customers are often just as clued up on new features as the dealers. User forums and other social media channels offer a lot of infor-mation, not only for potential buyers, but also for the HTO team. These have in fact opened up a contemporary channel for listening to customers.

“JLR has a team that monitors the web. They

trawl through social media sites looking for comments about the vehicles. It’s a great way to get the intelligence we need, and we can use that intelligence as evidence when we feed in-formation back to the designers and engineers. We can show them what the customers like and what they don’t like,” says Emma.

Relaying information back to the designers and engineers is an important part of the HTO

project. If a feature is too hard to operate, or if its operation is too hard to explain, the feature itself may need to be redesigned, or at least redefined.

“It certainly does happen that the designers of new features have to go back to the drawing board, but features are also delayed for other reasons. For instance, it is sometimes impor-tant to save some ‘sweets’ for another occa-sion,” says Ian Luckett with a smile. 1

“Social media is a great way to get the information we need about the vehicles.”

Emma Sweet, global education project manager, Semcon UK


The infotainment system is the hub of a modern car, also in the new Range Rover model. It is also the in-fotainment system that generates the most support questions – almost 80 percent. Therefore, Semcon’s video solutions largely focus on explaining the func-tions associated with the system.


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In total 36 different instructional videos have been produced for the latest Range Rover model, The All-New Range Rover. The videos include instructions for the following features.

BLUETOOTHBluetooth connectivity

and compatibility with mobile phones and other portable elec-tronics equipment is a must in modern vehicles. New models of mobile equipment are con-tinuously being brought to the market and the vehicle systems need to be readily adjustable to these newcomers. Dealers are encouraged to make sure that a customer’s mobile phone works flawlessly with the system in the vehicle during the sales process. A special website has been set up to support dealers, or the customers themselves, to quickly and easily find com-patibility and the right pairing method.

NAVIGATIONInformation entry into

the navigation system, espe-cially of destination details, has proved to be a relatively com-mon problem among custom-ers, even in parts of the world where post codes or zip codes have been widely adopted. Re-ports from the road-side assis-tance services indicate that this is an area responsible for much frustration among customers. In the UK a special service has been agreed with the motoring assistance organisation AA, which means that they can now send a text message to the car owner with a link to the relevant video information clip on the JLR website.

KEYLESS ENTRYThe keyless entry

system enables the owner to access the vehicle with key fobs left in pockets or handbags. The vehicle is automatically unlocked and its alarm system disengaged when the key fob is brought within a certain range of the vehicle. However, cur-rently a vehicle is not automati-cally locked when the owner leaves the car and moves away from it with the key fob. Locking the vehicle and enabling the alarm require the owner to ac-tively press a button on the key fob, a care-point stressed in the instructional video.

POWERED TAILGATEThe vehicle has a pow-

ered system for opening and closing of the rear tailgate for easy access to the rear loading space. This system was recon-figured following customer feed-back. Originally, only the opening of the tailgate could be operated from the key fob. To close it users had to press a but-ton on the inside of the tailgate. However, as the tailgate lifted up high, this proved difficult for some users who were not as tall as other Range Rover drivers. One petite lady owner solved the problem by hopping up into the rear of her vehicle, pressing the button, and then quickly jumping out again before the tailgate closed. In the latest models, the key fob is used to operate both functions, and the height setting adjustment is clearly explained.

REAR SEAT

ENTERTAINMENT The setup for entertainment in the rear of the vehicle is oper-ated from the front seat. This offers parental control, but can also be set to give back seat passengers control over what they watch or listen to in the rear of the vehicle. According to Ian Luckett the system is not hugely intuitive. It is what it is and the HTO team has had to do their best to support users. It is an example of an area where there is still room for design improvements inspired by feed-back from the HTO team.

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ABOUT

Visual customer support

WATCHInstruction videos for the All-New Range Rover

THE SOLUTIONHOW SEMCON SOLVED THE CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM

ASSIGNMENT: Zehnder needed to update the design of one of its air purifiers. The team at Semcon produced a number of concept proposals, which formed the beginning of a close collaboration. An assignment which came to include design, development, construction and technical information.

SOLUTION: Traditionally Zehnder purifiers were housed in a square metal shell. The concept the customer settled on was the one which stood out the most: a smooth design with a vacuum-formed plastic front. The choice of material, with its flexibility, offered design advantages and the ability to integrate technical features. The project team built the product from scratch with a modular approach which makes it easier for both installers and users.

RESULTS: The air purifier received a more fresh appearance. This signals efficiency and environmental awareness in tune with the Zehnder brand. There are two different models in the series, with a common base module for efficient production. When the air purifier was launched in early 2013, the manual had also received a new design and content from Semcon’s technical writers and illustrators.TEXT JOHAN JARNEVING PHOTO ZEHNDER

Better design for cleaner air


METAL BECOMES PLASTIC

The front is made of moulded plastic with integrated features such as a display and handles. A solution that saved weight and offered new design possibilities.

ROTATABLE DISPLAY

The touch screen was a square shape that can be rotated depending on whether the product is used in a free-standing position or hanging from the ceiling. The developers also solved problems with the connec-tions behind the case, allowing it to be CE-marked.

INNOVATIVE FILTER REDUCES HARMFUL DUST

The workings under the case were decided from the start and consist of Zehnder’s innovative air purification filters. A filter removes the smaller particles and reduces the amount of dust in the room. This size of air purifier is used in bakeries, carpenter’s, department stores and smaller warehouses, for example.

EASIER TO OPEN FROM ALL ANGLES

Two slots became one to facilitate filter changes. It was a challenge to design an opening which gave access to the filter from all angles. The solution was a door that opens upwards, like the boot of a car.

ROUNDER SHAPE

The top with its predetermined pattern of holes was given a domed appearance. It was a challenge to get the rounded metal and plastic front to meet. Close cooperation with suppliers led to an optimal solution.

ONE SIMPLE HANDLE

Previously, you had to remove four screws to open the filter covers. Now, the only door can be opened with a handle. This means smoother and faster access when the filter needs replacing.

MORE DESIGN, SMALLER SIZE

The shape and size of the filter could not be changed. So the designers had to work hard to create lines and forms that still led to a frescher appearance.



NCR has nearly 130 years’ experience in cash handling in banks. Their worldwide advanced cash handling systems

make it faster, safer and more efficient. But integrating new systems with old ones is a challenge, a challenge

that Semcon has taken on.TEXT HILDA HULTÉN PHOTO CHRIS CLOSE

QUICK(AND SAFE)MONEY

In a bank, cash handling is a big deal. The responsibility of counting, validating, and keeping cash safe is difficult but crucial. Fiona McDade, Senior Solution Manager at NCR in Dundee, Scotland, knows every-thing worth knowing about cash handling

systems. She has been with NCR Financial Services for 16 years, and seen the branch transformation up close. She has also been on board from the begin-ning of NCR’s cash recycler business. The company sells teller cash recyclers (TCR) and coin dispensers to help banks streamline their cash handling.

“We started selling TCRs around eight years ago. In 2008 we also acquired the number 1 software on the market” she says. “First thing we did was to transform it from a single-vendor into a multi-vendor software service.”

In 2008 the market had three major suppliers of TCR hardware, all with different software systems.

“Making the software multi-vendor friendly was strategically important for us. Today our software

supports 85 per cent of the TCRs on the market”, Fiona says.

To develop the software efficiently and inte-grate it with the hardware, NCR needed technical expertise.

“We were looking for skilled technical people for development and integration. We knew Semcon had experience with the software and reached out to them.”

SEMCON’S CONNECTIVITY TEAM now helps NCR with their software development. Apart from connec-tivity, the work involves integration and archi-tecture design, helping banks integrate their cash handling systems with their own hardware and software systems.

Around ten consultants from Semcon are in-volved in pre-sales processes, software architec-ture design, installation and technical support, education of bank staff and aftermarket service, assisting and supporting the local NCR sales teams all over the world.


Leading this connectivity work is integration specialist Jack Sundgren, department manager Embedded at Semcon Örebro.

“The biggest challenge is in adapting and creat-ing functional system architecture,” says Jack.

The first installation Semcon was involved in was at a large UK based bank in 2008. Since then, Semcon has assisted NCR in a large number of customer integrations worldwide, eg. India, Saudi

Arabia, Oman, the UK, Turkey and Singapore.“Coming to a new bank you have no idea what to

expect. The systems can be super advanced or basi-cally paper- and pen-based with Pneumatic Tube Transports,” Jack continues.

MAKING THE SYSTEM connect with everything from old, DOS-based data systems to Unix and the banks own systems, security systems and other hardware is just as diverse and difficult as it sounds.

“We need to know all different kinds of technical system and programming languages. The software supports a number of programming languages and over seven different APIs.”

An application-programming interface (API) is a rulebook on how software components should communicate with each other. The programming languages are everything from common Java and XML to local, self-developed programming languag-es known to nobody but the developers themselves.

“Working internationally, there can be technical

Fiona McDadeTitle: Senior Solution Manager, Financial ServicesClient: NCR, Dundee, Scotland

About NCRNCR Corporation is a global computer hardware and electronics company. The company was founded in 1884 by John H. Patterson as a maker of the first mechanical cash registers. Today NCR is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, USA, has around 24 500 employees worldwide, and operates in over 100 countries.


barriers built into the bank systems”, says Jack.Apart from technical, there are other challenges

included in the work.“There can be language barriers in explaining

and teaching how the system works.” As an external consultant, one has

to be an ambassador between the sales team and the customers, mak-ing the promises of the technology true,” says Jack.

“It requires long experience with system architecture to make a cor-rect analysis, but you also have to be perceptive and not step on any toes. Dress codes are also important, as well as social skills.”

FIONA ALSO RECOGNIZES the cultural challenges of the work.

“Our systems are used in 120 dif-ferent countries, so in this work you meet very different cultures.

She has a food-related memory from one instal-lation project in China.

“We stayed there one month and after a week I gave up and turned vegetarian,” she laughs. “They kept offering me foods like fried insects, sea snails, fish eyes... but this is an unusual excep-

tion, mostly the food is amazing.”“Working on developing and integrating soft-

ware in different branches is so fragmented, the work will never be done,” says Fiona. “One big

trend in the branch is what we call “thin-client” technology with more browser based solutions, centralized architectures and cloud based sys-tems with less standalone software.”

ANOTHER TREND IS banks looking to become more customer-friendly.

“The banks want to move towards a more retail-centric environment, with more inviting branch interiors. They don’t want bulletproof glass and bars between the customers and the staff,” she says.

The general consensus is that cash volumes are decreasing in favour of card payments. Some countries

are even talking about the future as the ’cash-free society’. However, this is a limited view of reality, according to Fiona.

“Actually cash volumes are increasing in the world, despite what people in the West think. So our business is growing but with an added focus on the management of cash.” 1

Jack SundgrenTitle: Department Manager/Integration SpecialistOffice: Semcon Sweden

TCR – How does it work? TCR (Teller Cash Recycler)

automates cash handling in bank branches worldwide, and reduces cash processing time by up to 50 per cent. This means that bank cashiers do not have to count and verify bills.

The TCR iden-tifies, counts,

validates and sorts up to eight notes per second. The notes are stored in 8-12 rolled storage modules, ena-bling the storage of multiple denomina-tions currencies and unfit banknotes for disposal. Each TCR can contain up to 150 dif-ferent denominations.

The machine uses multiple

technologies, such as 3D, visible light, infrared, ultraviolet and magnetic tech-niques to identify the banknotes. Up to 1300 tests are performed on each note. The system can detect counterfeits according to Euro-pean Central Bank regulations.

The software is integrated

with banking sys-tems which use dif-ferent APIs and com-municates with the banks’ own systems. The data collected can be transferred directly to the bank-ing systems, deposits can be recorded immediately in the customer’s account, and so on.

Multiple security fea-

tures can be installed in the system, such as locks, validation systems, alarms and time zones with delays, making the cash handling and storage safer, creat-ing a reduced risk of robbery.

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AMRISH GAHARWARSUBSEA DESIGN ENGINEER, SEMCON INDIA

HOBBIES Playing outdoor games, watching Bollywood movies and following news about international business and politics.

“This tablet can provide internet access for the billions of people who have been left behind by the digital age.”

GADGETS I LIKE

WORKING IN THE SUNSOLAR POWERED FIELD DESK

“It’s perhaps a little too large to be of use to me, but as long as you do not have to carry it – maybe having it in your car – it can be very helpful. As long as the sun shines, you should be able to gen-erate enough electricity to power a computer.”

GADGET-FINDING GADGETSTICK’N’FIND

“Sometimes I have a hard time finding my car or bike keys in the morning. Something like this can really help - you attach a small bluetooth sticker on what you want to track. As long as you are within 30 metres you can track the sticker with an app on your mobile.”

MOBILE CHARGEREPIPHANY ONE PUCK

“It’s cool that it works both ways – both a hot cup of coffee and a cold beer have the same effect. The difference in temperature generates electricity, which can slowly charge your mobile phone. It will probably not be enough to charge the phone entirely, but might save your day when you are about to run out of battery and have no way of charging it.”

THE 20 DOLLAR TABLETAAKASH 2

“This tablet costs just USD 20 for students and the poor. The unsubsidized price is USD 80. It is not very advanced, but includes all the technical features that should be in a tablet. It’s a great way to let everyone - both the poor and students - get up-to-date with the latest technology. This tablet can provide access to technology and the internet for the billions of people who have been left behind by the digital age.”

HEATED BUTTER KNIFETHE WARBURTONS TOASTIE KNIFE

“Spreading butter when it’s too hard can be dif-ficult – something I learned when I studied in Aberdeen in Scotland. This battery-powered but-ter knife heats the edge and makes the problem with butter being too hard disappear. “

When a patient had titanium dental implants fitted at Sahlgrenska Uni-versity Hospital in Göteborg, he noticed to his surprise that

his hearing had also improved. Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, had a couple of decades earlier made the discovery that titanium was accepted by living bone tissue as if it were part of its own structure (so-called osse-ointegration), and he had been successful in using the technique to replace teeth. But the apparent ability of the implants to conduct sound through skull bone directly to the in-ner ear, bypassing the outer and middle ear, opened up a whole new field of application.

THE TECHNOLOGY that started with that unex-pected discovery in the 1970s – bone conduc-tion implants that are fitted to the temporal bone area behind the ear – has provided hearing to more than 100,000 people around the world.

Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions, which is owned by the Australian company Cochlear Ltd and whose Baha system has its origins in Brånemark’s work, continues to drive research and development in Göteborg.

“The Baha system offers an alternative pathway to sound,” says Dr Mark Flynn, Di-rector of Research and Applications at Coch-lear Bone Anchored Solutions.

“It’s a very efficient method of sending sound, and for some people with a particular kind of hearing loss can be much more effective than traditional hearing aids in many cases.”

Typically when we hear, sound comes down the ear canal, is transferred through the USA middle ear to the cochlea, from where the signal is sent by nerves to the brain. However for some people, for a variety of reasons, the signal does not reach the cochlea. Patients with conductive hearing loss, mixed hearing loss or single-sided sensorineural deafness benefit from the way Baha sound processors vibrate the bone of the skull to conduct sound to the inner ear.

About 200 people work for Cochlear in Göteborg, many of them in R&D. A dedicated team carries out preclinical and clinical re-search to develop the next generation of bone conduction implants in collaboration with hospitals, institutes and universities. Semcon has had a number of experts working with Cochlear in Göteborg in recent years. Acous-tics and vibration specialist Jona Hoffmann currently works there with sound processor development, doing technical preparations for the verification and validation in patient

tests. He also carries out research and techni-cal investigations, and delivers patients’ needs to Cochlear’s development work.

“My role is in the final step of development, where we verify that the devices have the desired effect and will bring real benefits to patients,” says Jona Hoffmann.

BONE CONDUCTION IMPLANTS have come a long way since the first was fitted in 1977. A new geometry that includes a different surface structure means that the implant fuses with the bone of the skull more quickly – over two weeks rather than several months – while the sound processors have become smaller, more powerful and have more features.

As with researchers in other fields of elec-tronics, Cochlear faces a size-versus-perfor-mance conundrum with its sound processors.

“That is a key design challenge that we battle every day,” says Dr Flynn. “We want to provide more power through a smaller and smaller unit, but at the same time we want to ensure good sound quality and performance.”

The long-term vision is to develop hearing technologies that are less visible and provide better hearing outcomes.

“These technologies will require continued collaboration with our key development part-ners,” says Dr Flynn. 1

100,000 patients around the world have had their hearing improved thanks to a serendipitous discovery – that the bones of the skull conduct sound. Semcon is helping Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions develop the next generation of implants to help even more people.TEXT DAVID WILES PHOTO COCHLEAR

hearingaid


Mark FlynnTitle: Director of Research and Applications Location: Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions, Sweden

Jona HoffmannTitle: Sound and vibration engineerLocation: Semcon, Sweden

About the technologyCochlear’s bone conduction implants consist of three main components:1. SOUND PROCESSOR: Picks up the sound vibrations.2. ABUTMENT: Connects the sound processor to the implant, transferring sound into mechanical vibrations. 3. IMPLANT: Is placed in the skull behind the ear and osseointegrates with the bone. The implant transfers the sound vibrations, via the skull, directly to the functioning cochlea.

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Q&A GENEVIEVE BELLANTHROPOLOGIST

Genevieve Bell of Intel is considered one of the most creative people in the world. Her job? To be an anthropologist among engineers. Here she talks about technology anxiety, how to get engineers to see the future differently and what your glove compartment says about the cars of the future.

he Australian anthropologist Genevieve Bell arrived at the elec-tronics company Intel in 1998. Then many people, herself included, were wondering what she would do there. Today she leads a department consisting of 100 social scientists and is head of Intel’s User Experi-ence. She has received many prizes over the years for her work, trying to understand how people in differ-ent cultures deal with technology. In

2008 she was chosen as one of 60 so-called Intel Fellows, the most important senior people at In-tel. In 2010 she was named among the 100 Most Creative People in Business by the magazine Fast Company. And in 2012 she was inducted to the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. Together with her colleagues she has suc-ceeded in fundamentally changing the way Intel approaches its future products.What is an anthropologist doing at Intel?

For Intel, having research social scientists – we

don’t just have anthropologists, we also have psy-chologists and sociologists – is a way of getting smart about where technology is going. Intel makes microprocessors and platform solutions, and in or-der to do that we have to know where the technol-ogy is going. That is not just a technical question, but is also a question about people and the things they care about and their everyday practices and their frustrations. More than a decade ago Intel recognised that if you want to make technology that matters, you need to understand people. And who better than social scientists to do that?So what sort of questions are you trying to answer?

At the lab I’m running now, we are driven by some key questions: what are the things people love; what are the experiences that will deliver that love; and what are the technologies Intel needs to develop to make sure that those experi-ences happen.In what way do you get answers to your questions?

I travel around the world interviewing people and I tend to ask them three basic questions: who lives in this house; what they did yesterday; and if they

TEXT DAVID WILES

PHOTO LIAM WEST

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Genevieve BellTitle: Head of User Experience at Intel.Hobbies: travelling, reading, photog-raphy. “And watching TV is a very guilty pleasure about which I tell no one!”Favourite websites: eBay, jezebel.com, and abc.net.au/cricket “because I am a cricket tragic of the first order”.Favourite destinations: “In any given year I go to 10-15 countries doing research, and I love them all for different reasons.”


can show me their kit. Once you’ve got those two things sorted, you can ask questions about what sort of technology they use. I think that if you start by asking about the technology then you miss the sense of what people really do, how it is embedded in their daily lives, of what frustrates them and what doesn’t. And you miss the larger contextual stuff. But if this is all about developing the next gen-eration of Intel products, how come you don’t ask people about the future?

I want to know what people are doing now, because I don’t think that the future will be that far from the present. Human behaviour and what people care about change remarkably slowly. What sort of things do people tell you?

One woman told me she regarded all of her technology as being like a backpack full of baby birds with their mouths open, screaming to be fed. they all required wires and pass-words and plugs, and she had got to the point where all technology was overwhelming. It is an image that lots of people can relate to. We also hear people talking about the fact that technology still has a kind of magic to it. For me what is more interesting is when you no longer hear technology being thought about as technology, when people no longer marvel at Skype, or at the internet on their phones. Technology has landed in a very permanent way in people’s lives and it is now so natural-ised and embedded that they no longer think about the way they do banking or go out on a date or order groceries. Technology becomes part of the routine.

How do you use the input you get from your studies?

We do a bunch of different things inside Intel to make sure that the research finds the right ground. We partner with the business groups across the company to help them get a sense of what people are doing and what they care about. We sometimes build fully fleshed-out working technical prototypes; we sometimes build lo-fi prototypes to talk about the results. Can you give an example?

I kicked off a study about 18 months ago where we started looking at cars. The first project involved unpacking the contents of people’s cars and photographing them, which was mesmerising. This was to help engineers

think about cars as cultural objects. We put GPS tracking devices in their cars to track where they went over time. We printed maps of those journeys and ask people to talk about what they were doing on those journeys and what technology they used along the way. And then we proceeded to take all those com-binations of findings and build a series of pro-totypes about what a car might look like one, three, five years from now.What did you find in these cars and what did it tell you?

In glove compartments in in Singapore there were hong bao, the red envelopes that are given at Chinese New Year. We were told these were for when you turn up at a wed-ding and you realise that your gift isn’t good

“You can’t be successful by making technology for technology’s sake. You have to make technology because it does something.”

Genevieve Bell

Q&A GENEVIEVE BELLANTHROPOLOGIST

3 MANY INTERNETSWe are moving towards a world of many internets, not a

single internet. Several regimes have chosen to turn off bits of the Internet, thus making it clear that the Internet is not a seamless whole. Also we now have devices connecting to 3G and 4G, through fixed line or mobile internet, and the devices can be anything from phones to televisions.

2 SOCIOTECHNICAL ANXIETYThe stories around the introduc-

tion of new technology are incredibly re-vealing, in particular the ones about what makes us anxious. Big Data is creepy – that pair of shoes that you clicked on start following you around the internet – and these are the beginnings of a new wave of anxiety about technology that will be very interesting to watch unfold.

1 BIG DATA AND THE CLOUDThe increasing availability

of devices that generate more and more data about consumers and consumer behaviour means that we are at a point where small data becomes Big Data, and Big Data becomes analytics. I think that space is just fascinating.

3Genevieve Bell on three emerging technical trends


enough. In many American cars there were greeting cards and wrapping paper in the glove compartment. In Australian cars there was always alcohol in the boot so you didn’t show up at someone’s house empty-handed. And I realised that the way we had thought about cars up until that point was as them keeping us physically safe, with airbags, seat-belts, roll bars. But it also turns out that for most consumers cars provide social safety too, and that was really interesting.How could Intel apply these findings to future car technology?

I suspect it means that we will think differ-ently about what the whole in-vehicle infor-mation system will have to look like. Our re-search revealed that cars are not just functional

places, not everything is about cars being about fuel consumption and the speed at which air-bags deploy. Cars are also places where people play out complicated and rich social lives. as we think about the technology in and around cars, we need to bear that in mind. What are the biggest challenges for a social scientist working in a cutting edge technology environment like Intel?

It has always been an interesting challenge, for Intel and for me. One of the things I have always admired about the company was that they decided to hire an anthropologist in the first place. I think part of the early challenge was finding common ground where we could have a conversation. I had a very different vocabulary, very different training, a very dif-

ferent set of preoccupations, and it took me a while to work out how to talk so that I could be understood. How does your role fit into the wider innova-tion process?

I think of social science researchers as be-ing a complement to market research and R&D. You need to watch products in use to start to imagine new possibilities. Part of the reason I think we social scientists have had so much traction at Intel is that when you get to that moment where the senior decision-makers in your company no longer look like customers in the market in which you want to succeed, you need to have people to help bridge the distance. At Intel we have an ex-traordinary leadership team, but the markets in which they have been successful are not the ones in which they will have to be successful in the future. How much impact have you and your fellow social scientists had at Intel?

I think our biggest impact has been to reframe the way the company thought about what it was doing. When I joined Intel, it was all about Moore’s Law: things should get smaller and faster and cheaper every 18 months. Today the corporate mission is to “touch and enrich the lives of every person on this planet”. Granted, Moore’s law will help that happen, but those are two very different statements of purpose. For me one of the very powerful things about Intel’s transforma-tion is realising that you can’t be successful by making technology for technology’s sake. You have to make technology because it does something. The reality is that if we look to the next five or ten years the successful tech-nologies will be the ones that people like, that create new efficiencies and new possibilities. And that only happens if you are paying at-tention to the world and the future. 1


Inspired by racing cars, aeroplanes and luxury yachts, the entrepreneur Bill Davis has developed his version of a dream caravan – the prize-winning Tripbuddy. Three young engineers

from Semcon assisted him.TEXT GITTAN CEDERVALL PHOTO TRIPBUDDY & CHRIS GLOAG

The journey towards the prize-winning caravan Tripbuddy started when Bill Davis tried to tempt his family on a camping holiday.

“They were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of living in a ‘beige box’! Cries of ‘uncool’ could be heard reverberating about the house every time I mentioned the word ‘caravan’.”

Instead of feeling defeated, Bill decided to see it as a challenge to redefine the entire caravan concept – from construction and living area to design and image. How could the caravan concept attract new target groups and get more to take to the roads? Bill Davis has a background as an en-gineer in the automotive industry and it was a natural starting point to start using methods and tools nor-mally used to develop cars, boats and aeroplanes.

“The one piece composite body, the ergo-nomic details, the aerodynamics and the whole vehicle dynamics have been devel-oped using the latest computer-aided technologies, such as CATIA, MSc

Patran, Nastran and ADAMS. We used scale models and wind tunnel tests to develop the aerodynamics and ensured that Tripbuddy met all the caravan safety standards and requirements,” explains Bill.

THE INSPIRATION FOR the design, both for the exterior and interior, was drawn from iconic products includ-ing 1960’s campers and luxury modern yachts. The glazing is produced by a company more accustomed to

producing glazing systems for racing cars and aeroplanes, and the whole interior with its hard-wearing, functional design

and its teak floor comes from a luxury yacht. One of the most unique functions of the Tripbuddy is the easily-

accessible back door, which also acts as a roof to the inbuilt awning.

The plan was to launch the Tripbuddy at the 2012 British Motorhome and Caravan

Show. Beforehand it was voted “Best Camping Trailer of 2012” in the USA,

but it had fallen behind schedule

A CARAVAN OF THE FUTURE

Bill DavisFounder and CEO, Tripbuddy


due to some minor but necessary alterations to the design. Bill Davis contacted Semcon to get help.

“Tripbuddy seemed like the ideal project for three of our young engineers who needed to work on projects in which they had to solve real problems. I knew that Bill had some work that needed doing, and it was just the sort of work that provides excellent training for graduates,” says Richard Springall, Technical Director Semcon UK.

The three engineering graduates – Dan-iel Batchelor, Martyn Sweeney and Greg Woolhead – were taken on at Semcon in the autumn of 2011 and with Tripbuddy received a real challenge to get their teeth into.

“The original chassis wasn’t quite strong

enough, so it needed some modification. That was one of the first tasks I was set,” explains Martyn Sweeney.

“To start with, I worked mainly on the in-terior structure of the rear door. It had to be rigid enough and yet not too heavy. That was quite a challenge. My first design was far too heavy, so it had to be redesigned,” says Greg Woolhead.

THE REAR DOOR is one of the caravan’s most central innovations. Instead of the conven-tional caravan access through a small side door the Tripbuddy’s rear door lifts up to provide easy access from the rear. This of-fers advantages not just for loading, but the door also doubles as a rigid roof for a built-in,

foldable and extendable awning.“On the model, the door was quite flimsy,

and apart from developing its structure, we had to work out where to place the hinges in order for them to support the weight of the door,” says Daniel Batchelor.

“We had to work out the angles, and I did some kinematic modelling of the gas struts that support the opening mechanism, and that involved talking to technical advisers at the manufacturers and then producing the final drawings,” says Martyn.

Apart from the unconventional caravan door the Semcon trio was faced with unusu-ally big caravan windows, which make the Tripbuddy look as if it’s wearing a gigan-tic pair of sunglasses. Revealing absolutely nothing from the outside, they offer great space-extending views from the inside.

“The fact that the windows are flush with the exterior body gives them a more

luxurious feel. But the surface qual-ity of the windows needed to be

improved, and I had to figure out how to achieve that. First, I

had to remove the windows to carry out digitisa-

tion work on them. Because we already

had a model to work from, it

was a bit

“Without Semcon’s help we wouldn’t have been able to launch the Trip-buddy in time.”

Bill Davis, CEO, Tripbuddy

Greg Woolhead, Martyn Sweeney, Daniel BatchelorTitles: Design engineer, Semcon UK

The interior of Bill Davis’ Tripbuddy is inspired by yachts with a teak floor, smart compact features, decorations made from composite material, leather furnishings and remote-controlled LED lighting. Furthermore, everything is water-proof so it can be easily washed down.


like reverse engineering,” says Daniel.“Everything we did had to be strong enough,

light enough and cheap enough. That meant that we were sometimes going around in cir-cles, but that’s part of the process,” says Greg.

HAVING SOLVED THE main tasks set for them, the three started looking for details to be im-proved. For instance, they came up with a way of pulling up the table from a groove in the floor, and to position it either at a comfort-able table height or lower down to form part of the bed.

“That idea was not used for the prototype, but it could be incorporated when manufac-turing starts,” says Martyn.

“I had about 3-4 months of work to catch up with, and thanks to the Semcon graduates I was able to get back on track. Without Semcon’s help we wouldn’t have been able to launch the Trip-buddy in October 2012,” says Bill Davis.

“All three engineers and I were present at the launch. It was a great opportunity for the guys to meet potential custom-ers and to listen to their com-ments,” says Richard Springall.

“At the launch they were completely out of their comfort

zone, but that in itself is an important experience,” Bill fills in.

The next challenge for Bill Davis involves manufacturing the Tripbuddy. Two caravans are being built at the compa-ny’s factory in Hampshire, and so far another eight have been ordered.

“I need to find a bigger factory, so I’m looking to relocate the business. I designed the Tripbuddy to build it myself and I’m not interested in licensing it to others. Building it myself is the only way I can ensure that the quality is high enough,” he says.

Each Tripbuddy is custom-built and the first one off the production line was or-dered by a customer whose wife has multiple

sclerosis (MS). The caravan is wheelchair-friendly without the need for modification, as the rear door offers a cavern-ous opening which is easily accessed by all users, regardless of whether they use a wheel-chair or not. This is a massive advantage for disabled users, which Bill Davis is well aware of and keen to explore.

“It opens up a whole new and untapped market. How many disabled people are able

to go camping today?” he asks rhetorically.

Disabled people are not the only new market Bill Davis is targeting. Peo-

ple interested in sports represent another forgotten group of potential caravan users,

and with his new concept of caravanning, Bill Davis intends to tap into that market as well.

“These are people who don’t necessarily want to go caravanning, but they need a ve-hicle which enables them to fully enjoy their respective sport. For instance, the second Tripbuddy I’m working on at the moment is for a chap who wants to fit his go-cart in the back of the caravan and just have a small space for sleeping and eating at the front,” he says.

REACHING SUCH AUDIENCES requires new mar-keting channels, and Bill is exploring them. One such marketing avenue involves attract-ing the attention of the production team behind the hugely popular BBC TV show Top Gear. However, as one of the present-ers, Jeremy Clarkson, in his own words “hates caravans”, this calls for drastic action.

“I intend to break the towing land speed re-cord with a Tripbuddy on tow,” says Bill, who has been called “the Antichrist of caravan-ning” by a caravan parts supplier. And you’d think that’s an epithet that in itself would attract the attention of Mr Clarkson. 1

Richard SpringallTitle: Technical Director, Semcon UK

The engineers’ own favouritesThe Semcon engineers Mar-tyn Sweeney, Daniel Batchelor and Greg Woolhead pick out

their favourite Tripbuddy features:

WASHABLE FLOOR“Dirty sports equipment is no problem as the marine-grade wooden floor can be hosed down, and the water drains into a tank from which it can be taken away from your camping spot,” says Martyn.

CUSTOMIZED KITCHEN “Customers can have what-ever they need fitted in the kitchen. It doesn’t have to be a sink, a cooker and a fridge. It could be a microwave oven or just a champagne cooler,” says Martyn.

LARGE WHEELS “Having larger wheels than an ordinary caravan makes it stable enough for off-roading in muddy fields. I have asked if I can borrow the prototype for going to music festivals,” says Greg.

ONE-PIECE BODY“The moulded monocoque body shell is a unique feature and it is bonded to the floor and to the chassis, so there are no joints that can leak,” says Daniel.

SMART REAR DOOR“The opening and the drop-down tent at the back are a great way of utilising the rear door for dual purposes. It provides a lot of extra space,” says Daniel.

STYLING“It has a very distinctive style. You wouldn’t take it somewhere and loose it. At a music festival, for instance, there’d be white box, white box, white box, and then the Tripbuddy,” says Greg.

SLIMLINE DESIGN “There’s no need to fit extra wing mirrors on towing vehicles as the Tripbuddy is no wider than a normal car. It is easy to tow for inexperienced caravan drivers,” says Daniel.


TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM, HILDA HULTÉN & JOHAN JARNEVING

PHOTO ANNA SIGVARDSSON, KARSTEN THORMAELEN & JESPER ORRBECK

SEMCON BRAINS


The quality expert

WITHIN THE PHARMACEUTICAL industry there are tough laws and guidelines which apply to products and processes. However, there are also tough demands on those working in the industry. Panajota Vasilo-poulou has devoted herself to quality work for 15 years and is one of Semcon’s qual-ity experts. Among other things, she has worked as an expert, known as a Qualified Person, at Oriola AB, one of the largest phar-

maceutical distributors in Sweden. “In Sweden, all businesses which manu-

facture drugs have to have a chief expert who has a personal connection to manu-facturing licenses from the Medical Prod-ucts Agency. The job of qualified person may be temporarily delegated internally but only to people who meet the require-ments,” says Panajota.

As a Qualified Person, Panajota certi-

fies and releases products after stages such as repackaging and relabeling, but also checks that the previous authority has certified and released its part. Then the products are delivered to pharmacies around the country.

“The tough regulations are there to pro-tect the end user: the patient. Therefore I feel my job is not only one of development, but also important and valuable,” she says.

panajota vasilopoulou, senior quality consultant, semcon sweden

FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.20103 39FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 39

40 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.201340 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013

A SINGLE FAULTY PIECE of a puzzle can make the whole puzzle un-solvable in a gearbox, for exam-ple. William Jones, Dimensional Management engineer at Semcon Rüsselsheim, says his job is to ensure that all the pieces fit and function together.

“Anyone can successfully build a functioning machine once. When parts come from different global sup-

pliers, variation can wreak havoc on the system. Regardless of how well the system is designed each supplier only focuses on their parts, and small design variations can result in costly build stops.”

Instead of hoping for the best, William Jones proactively controls the variation within the systems by applying the rules of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, which

in the world of engineering is known as GD & T.

“GD&T is essentially a dimension-ing language based on function and mathematical calculations. It allows problems to be identified and solved in the theoretical phase.”

At the moment, William Jones is working to ensure that over 150 components of a manual transmis-sion for a German car manufacturer

not only fit together, but also function flawlessly.

It is rare that everything works at the first attempt, but William’s team has successfully manufactured the first perfectly-working gearbox for the customer.

“That’s the thankless part of dimensional management,” says William. “When we do a really good job, no-one should notice it at all.”

The puzzle builderwilliam jones, dimensional management, semcon germany

SEMCON BRAINS

FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.20103 41FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 41

The oil expert

EXTRACTING OIL AT SEA is a high-risk project and the preparation is at least as exacting as the conditions. Hanna Zielinska, a calculation engineer specializing in the design and production of oil, knows precisely how exacting. After completing her engineering degree at home in Warsaw, she came to Semcon in 2008. Since 2010 she has been working with the offshore industry in Norway.

Much of the work involves predicting the unpredictable. Because even if she sees the ability to draw logical conclu-sions as her main driving force, she dares to trust her gut instincts.

Her second assignment in Norway, an oil platform for Statoil, was a good example of this.

“We worked out the entire process

from initial sketches to ongoing opera-tion. Each beam, profile and weld has to be checked against the force of waves, storms, earthquakes and fire. The parts of the oil rig come from all over the world so the logistics calculations include both the weather and pirates in the Gulf of Aden. In all, we had at least 500 pieces of data, and then you have to dare to listen to your intuition.”

The finished oil platform is a com-bination of gut instinct, strict testing and detailed calculations. In the case of Statoil, Hanna’s logical analysis resulted in a weight reduction of 600 tonnes. And every loss of weight is a small step towards a greener oil industry, a develop-ment that Hanna wants continue to contribute to in the future.

hanna zielenska, calculation engineer, semcon sweden

BEHIND THE SCENES AT SEMCON BRAINSWould like to know more about Hannah Zielinska, her work in the oil industry and what challenges she has found at Semcon? Watch the film at semcon.com


SEMCON UPDATEWHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEMCON’S WORLD

EMPLOYEES AT SEMCON in India take their social responsibility very seriously by organizing and participating in a number of ma-jor events each year.

“The purpose of our participation is to give motivation to our children and young people,” says head of department Ravis-hankar Reddy.

This commitment is supported by Semcon, but it is done on a voluntary basis by staff. The employees work in their spare time collecting books, clothing and materials. They are then distributed, to recipients such as underprivileged children in

the town of Tumkur, north-west of Bangalore.“It is imperative that each child gets at least a basic education.

We visited a school in Bangalore and organized the “One Day Knowledge Transfer Program”, where we talked about health and hygiene, and provided basic computer skills,” says Ravishankar.

In addition to school visits, the team has participated in the “Champion In Me” contest for two years in a row, where partici-pants can choose if they want to walk or run five kilometres. The purpose is to publicize and provide support for children with HIV and AIDS in the country.

Semcon employees support children in India


New partnership project with global German auto supplierSemcon has been chosen by a global German automotive manufacturer to develop an existing model with new architecture. About 150 engineers will be involved – 40 in Germany and 110 in Trollhättan, Sweden.

“We are proud to have once again been entrusted by one of our German auto customers to complete a major project. This agreement is fully in line with Semcon’s strategy of being an independent partner with expertise and capacity for complete car develop-ment” says Stefan Ohlsson, President, Automotive R&D at Semcon.

The initial phase of the project is expected to run until the end of 2015, with the possibility of further collabo-rative projects.

Continued collaboration with STCCFor the sixth year in a row, Semcon is sponsoring the largest Touring Car championship in Scandinavia, the STCC. The championship is decided over eight races around Sweden. In addition to classic racing tracks such as Knutstorp, Karlskoga and Mantorp, there are also two city races: STCC Semcon Göteborg City Race and STCC Semcon Stockholm City Race.

New headquarters for Semcon700 metres north-north-east – this is how far Semcon’s HQ in Göteborg is moving.

“Our ambition is to create a cost-effective office that promotes personal interaction. The building is also clearly designed for project delivery, a busi-ness model which is continuously in-creasing,” says Semcon’s CEO Markus Granlund.

The move is scheduled for January 2015.

Semcon.com gets responsive

Semcon had a small solution for Tetra Pak in Lund

IN FEBRUARY a new version of Semcon.com was rolled out, with so-called responsive design. This means that the page content automatically adapts to whichever device the visitor is using - whether it is a computer, tablet or mobile phone.

“Visitors to Semcon.com are using increasingly diverse platforms, and as a company with technology at the forefront, it is important that we offer visitors a thoughtful and accessible experience,” says Madeleine Andersson, Global Marketing & Online Manager.

The new version focuses on the benefits of what Semcon deliv-ers, but the content will be developed further during the year.

“We have made some design adjustments, but it is above all a technical upgrade to improve access for webpage visitors,” says Madeleine.

SIK – THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE for Food and Biotechnology in Göteborg - is collaborating with Tetra Pak Processing Systems AB to develop methods for mixing powder-based foods, such as spices.

Previously, SIK had been using Tetra Pak’s standard mixer, which has a volume of 200 litres. The enormous volume has meant that the research team has had to spend a lot of time - and strength - carrying entire sacks of powder both to and from the mixer in every test.

“This type of assignment is part of our everyday work and is a very good example of what we actually do,” says Kristian.

Semcon designer Gian Pinotti constructed a miniature copy of the mixer, with a more manageable volume of two litres, which is now operating at SIK’s premises.

Apart from saving space, the research team can now spend more time on actual research, and don’t hesitate to conduct another test.

In addition, the mixer was made transparent, which means that for the first time what happens to the powder in the mix-

ture can be seen.

From 200 litres to two. Volumes shrank by 99 per cent when Semcon built a powder mixer for TetraPak.

A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE # 1 2013

future by semcon

#1 2013

AFTER WORKname Pär Ekströmage 41at work Research within electricity/electronics at Semcon Göteborg. after work Dances folk dance, tango and the Lindy Hop, and is chairman of the Göteborg Folk Dance Circle. current challenge Developing the folk dance movement and attracting more younger dancers.

PÄR EKSTRÖM:

“Dancing is like being a child again”About me“I’m an open, results-oriented and keen person who likes honesty and getting things done. I live in Majorna in Göteborg with my partner Pernilla Stenvall and our daughter Rut, who was born in November.”

About my job“I’m a civil engineer and have worked for the Semcon Group since 2004. Right now I’m working on research projects within electric-ity/electronics.”

About folk dancing“Eight years ago I decided that I wanted to try something new in my free time. I started dancing tango and loved the fact that it was spontaneous, free and fun.

I was introduced to folk dancing by a col-league who took me to a folk music festival in Ransäter. I expected that all the ladies there would be 10-15 years older. But my friend tempt-ed me with barbecues and beer. When I got there it turned out that I was right about the age difference, but the girls were 10-15 years younger instead. It really got rid of my prejudices!

Today I am chairman of the Folk Dance Circle in Göteborg and coordinate the city’s twelve dancing associations. I am involved thanks to a passion for dance, but there are also ideologi-cal reasons. Folk dancing is a non-profit move-ment and thus an important part of society.”

What I’ve learnt through dance“Dancing gives me a different perspective, travel opportunities in Europe and the rest

of the world and it puts me in contact with a lot of different categories of people. At work I just meet engineers, but dancing has absolutely no relevance to people’s jobs. The whole folk dance movement is an idealistic contrast to the commercial interests at work - here two parallel worlds meet.”

ABOUT: PÄR’S FAVOURITE DANCES: TANGO, POLSKA AND LINDY HOP• Tango is a dramatic ballroom dance for couples developed by immigrants in Bue-nos Aires in the late 1800s.• Polska is a dance in 3/4 time that has been danced since the 1400s. • Lindy Hop, a swing dance also known as the jitterbug, developed in the 1920s and 1930s in Harlem, New York.

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IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION?

JAGUAR LAND ROVER LISTENS TO THE CUSTOMER

INTEL’S GENEVIEVE BELL CHANGES OUR VIEWS OF TECHNOLOGY

SAFER MONEY AT THE BANK WITH NCR


CUSTOMER IS KING

customer is king (future by semcon magazine # 1 2013)

Technology

new customer

work dances folk dance

folk dance circlein

thewhole folk dance

swing dance

semcon gteborg

new york

customer relationscompetition