On February 5, 2016, a group of 25 Honours College students from the University of Groningen visited XPAR Vision for a field trip: a full morning program, with presentations, workshops, an office tour and a lunch. Central theme of the company visit was ‘Introducing new technology in industrial environment: human adaptability requires time!’ The Honours College gives talented and motivated students a possibility to attend additional courses, besides the regular Bachelor and Masters program. Goal is, the development of talent and own initiative, in an interdisciplinary, scientific and social environment.
In his XPAR Vision company presentation, CEO Paul Schreuders exposed the students to the topics: container glass, container glass manufacturing and the unique XPAR Vision method. First, Schreuders asked attention for the preferences and values of glass, in comparison to other packaging materials. Glass has several benefits, in terms of taste, quality, sustainability and health. The students watched some videos from the O-I Glass Is Life campaign. After that, they saw footage of the container glass manufacturing process, highly unknown to most of them. Finally, XPAR Vision presented itself as a dynamic company with a portfolio of innovative Hot End sensor technologies for inspection, process control and process automation.
REASONS & REMEDIES
After focusing on the technology, the presentation shifted towards the implementation and use of technologies on the shop floor. The broad experience of XPAR Vision in industrial environments literally took decades, to develop from nothing to complete process automation. In a couple of workshops, the students searched for Reasons & Remedies for this slow adaptation process to new technology by the glass container industry. The following reasons were mentioned:
- technology needs to be learned and understood;
- the application of technology needs to be learned and understood;
- embedding new technology needs to be organized;
- embedding new technology requires ownership and leadership;
- new technology always has lots of opportunities to improve;
- new technology is hardly ever 100% ready at the time of market introduction.
Understanding the various reasons for slow adaptation opened the way to think about remedies. In this respect the following remedies were mentioned:
- Training & Instruction
- Communication & Explanation
- Implementation Support, on site!
- Best-in-class Customer Support
- Focus on easy use
- Focus on actively seeking for cultural alignment
Creating a “must have” approach.
WORTH REPEATING
All in all it was a good day, worth repeating, both for the Honours College students and for the XPAR Vision employees.
