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Customer is king (Future by Semcon Magazine # 1 2013)

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The document features an interview with Pär Ekström, a civil engineer and chairman of the Göteborg folk dance circle, discussing his passion for folk dancing and its societal importance. It also explores the evolving role of customer relations in business, emphasizing the significance of building long-term relationships and adapting to new technology to enhance customer experience. Additionally, it highlights various case studies, including Nike's digital transformation and Southwest Airlines' customer service approach.

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A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE #1 2013 futurebysemcon#12013 AFTER WORK name Pär Ekström age 41 at 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: “Dancingislike beingachildagain” 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 “EightyearsagoIdecidedthatIwantedtotry somethingnewinmyfreetime.Istarteddancing tangoandlovedthefact thatitwasspontaneous, freeandfun. 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. + TEXT:JOHANNALAGERFORSPHOTO:EMELIEASPLUND IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION? JAGUARLANDROVER ­LISTENSTOTHECUSTOMER INTEL’SGENEVIEVEBELLCHANGES OURVIEWSOFTECHNOLOGY SAFERMONEYAT THEBANKWITHNCR 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 BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING.
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 3 40MEETSEMCON’S SHARPESTMINDS InSemconBrainsyouwillmeetHanna Zielinska,anoilexpertwithintuition, PanajotaVasilopoulou,whoensures that therightmedicinesaresupplied topharmacies,andWilliamJones,who keepstrackofallthepiecesinagearbox. 28 GROUNDBREAKING HEARINGAIDS Cochlear’sbone-anchoredhearingaids haveimprovedthehearingof100000 peoplearoundtheworld.Semconis helpingtodevelopthenextgeneration ofhearingaids. Website: semcon.com Letters: Future by Semcon, Semcon AB, 417 80 Göteborg, Sweden. Change of address: future@semcon.com Publisher: Anders Atterling, tel: : +46 (0)70-447 28 19, email: anders.atterling@semcon.com Semcon project manager: Madeleine Andersson, tel: +46 (0)76-569 83 31, email: madeleine.andersson@semcon.com Editorial production: Spoon. Editor: Katarina Misic. Designer:Mathias Lövström.URL: spoon.se Repro: Spoon. Printing:TrydellsTryckeri,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 30ANANTHROPOLOGIST AMONGENGINEERS GenevieveBellhasbeennamedasone oftheworld’smostcreativepeople.As ananthropologistatIntelshegetsen- gineerstolookat thefuturedifferently. Afuturewheretechnologyisabout people. 34THECARAVANOF THE FUTUREISHERE TheentrepreneurBillDaviswantedto developtheultimatecaravantoattract newcustomergroupstotheroads.The result:theprize-winningTripbuddy.To helphim,hechoseSemcon. MARKUSGRANLUND,CEO,SEMCON
4 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 PEOPLE #1.2013PEOPLE IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON patricsvensson, designproject manager,semcon sweden What rolecanindustrialdesign playincustomerrelations? “Aproduct that isappreciatedby theuser,bothemotionallyand functionality-wise,strengthens thebrand.Theuser- theend customer-hasapositiveat- titude to theproduct and thus thecompanyproducingand selling theproduct.Industrial designis thekey toasuccess- fulproduct andanimportant linkbetween theuserand 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. ianluckett,globalproducttrainingmanager, jaguarlandrover,uk What arethechallengesinintroducingnew,user-friendlytechnology incars? “Toensurecustomersatisfactionand tomaximise theuseof technical featuresare themainchallengesfor theintroductionofnew,user- friendly technologyinvehicles.Toachieve that,youneed tomakesure that thecustomerunderstandswhat the technologydoesandhowit isoperated.” fionamcdade,seniorsolutionmanager,ncr,scotland Howcanyourcashsolutionsforbankshelptheircustomerrelations? “Ourmachinessimplifycashhandlingby takingcareofevaluating,countingandsort- ing thenotes,whichmeans that staffhavemore timefor thecustomer.Thesecurity ofusingournotemachinesallowsbanks tobecomemoreretailer-like,without bul- letproofglassandbarsbetweencustomersandstaff.” 16 PAGE 10 PAGE 24 PAGE
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 5 panajotavasilopoulou,seniorquality consultant,semconsweden Howcanthepharmaceuticaltradeimproveitscustomerrelations? “In thisindustry,customers takeit forgranted that manufacturing andpackagingisdoneaccording to theexisting toughlawsand regulations.Thereforeit isdoublyimportant toensurequality,soas not todamage,but tostrengthen theconfidence thecustomersfeel.” markflynn,directorofresearch andapplications,cochlearbone anchoredsolutions,sweden Howimportant arecustomerrelationsinyourwork todevelopbetterhearingaids? “Customerrelationsareabsolutelyfundamentalin thisarea.Thegreat majorityofourresearchactivities arecompletedincollaborationwithuniversitiesand surgeonsandotheracademicsandclinicians.Without their timeandinput andourabilitytowork together, thepaceofinnovationwouldbemuchslower.” 38 PAGE williamjones,dimensional management,semcon germany What roledoyouthinkcustomer ­relationswillplayinthecarindustry in thefuture? “Customerrelationsare thebe-alland end-all.Trust andbrandloyaltyhave alwaysbeenimportant in thecarindus- tryandI think theywillbeevenmore important in thefuture.It’swhat can distinguishonecompanyfromanother. Customerloyaltyandconfidence takes years tobuild,but iseasy tolose.” 42 PAGE 28 PAGE
LONG LIVE THE CUSTOMER!
Merelysellinggood productsisnotenoughto becomeasuccessfulbusiness.To beatyourcompetitors,youhaveto knowhowtobuildcustomerrelationships whichlastlongafterthesaleismade. Whetherit’saboutnewexperiences, superiorserviceorbigdataanalysis –morethanever,thecustomeris kingofthebusinessworld. 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. CASESTUDY Southwest Airlines “Weseeourselvesasacustomerservicecompanywhichhappens tofly airplanes”isoneofSouthwest Airlines’mottos.Personalserviceisoneof themainreasons that it hasbecome theworld’slargest lowcost airline.The “Bagsflyfree”campaignwasasuccessin2009.Southwest distanced them- selvesfrom theircompetitorsbyallowingpassengers to take twobagson-board forfree.Theyhavealsostreamlined theboardinganddisembarkingprocesses.It takes20minutes toemptyandboardaSouthwest planewithnewpassengersfrom the timeit has taxiedin.TheairlineisAmerica’smost popular.Incomein2012was$620million. + 8 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
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:NIKE FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 9
P atric 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 wasagoodsignforuswhenwe heardabout agrey-hairedwoman whochoseablackaidinsteadofsilver, becauseshelikedit andwanted tohigh- light it,”saysSvensson. Anindustrialdesignerisusually involved throughout,from theconcept until theproduct ships.At a timewhen it israrelypossible tomakerevolutionary stepsin thedevelopment process,it is thesmallimprovements that determine howanewproduct willbereceived. It isin theresearchworkandcontact PatricSvenssonseesindustrial ­designasthewaytothecustomer Auser-friendlyandstylishproductthatworks–accordingto industrialdesignerPatricSvenssonthisisfoundationofagood relationshipbetweencustomerandproducer.Thinkingdesign allthewayfromconcepttoproductionisthekeytosuccess. TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM PHOTO LARS ARDARVE THEEXPERT Patric Svensson Title: Design Project Manager Office: ­Semcon,Sweden withusers that thelargest opportunities exist.Howdo theyexperiencecurrent products?Are theyuser-friendly?What would theylike toimprove? “Theresult of theinitialresearchwas used tocreateadesignplatform,adocu- ment that streamlines thewaywork continues.Wedon’t spendalot of time ondesignideasbeforeweand thecus- tomerknowwhat wewant todo.” Theydevelopaconcept whichis then processedintoafinisheddesign–all the timeusing thedesignplatformas asupport.When thedesigners’work playsmoreofarole,Svenssonandhis colleaguesareby theirsideassupport in thewholeprocess. “Wefollowup thedesignintentionso that theperceivedfeelingiswhat was intended. Industrialdesignisusedinallkinds ofproducts,fromsmallhearingaids to largemachines.Design,regardlessof the product,instilsasenseofquality– the product iswell thought out.It strength- ensconfidenceand thus thebrand.” “Identifyingseeminglysmallproblems earlyin theresearchprocesscanlead to significant benefitswith thefinished product and theuser’sexperienceofit.It shows that youcareandisakey togood customerrelations.” Arecent exampleisapatient handset forhospitalswitharangeoffunctions. Everyone,regardlessofageandphysical andmentalstatus,must obviouslybe ablecallforhelp,so theyhavehigh- lighted theergonomicalarmbuttonin a tactileandvisualway.But thereisalso asmallerattentionbutton touseifyou want aglassofwater,forexample. “Right now thereisonlyonebutton forallalarms,whichcanlead topatients feeling that theyareinterferingand makeit harderfornurses toprioritize theirwork.Aseeminglysmalldetailsuch as theattentionbuttoncancreatebetter conditionsforbothnurseandpatient,” saysSvensson.1 10 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
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- FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING “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 CASESTUDY Lexus Just afewmonthsafter thelaunchofToyota’sLexusluxurybrandin the U.S.,theywereforced torecall8,000carswhenafault with thecruise controlwasdetected.It issaid that youcouldalmost hear thecheersfrom Stuttgart andDetroit whencompetitorsgot windof theproblem.Lexus wrotealetterofapology toallitscustomers.Localdealerscollectedeachcar and thecustomersgot afreeloancaruntil therepairwascompleted.All there- pairedcarswerereturnedfreshlywashedandwithafull tank.If therewasnoLexusdealer in theneighbourhoodLexusstaffflew to thecustomerandfixed theproblemon-sitein the customer’sowngarage.InJanuary2013Lexussold16211carsin theU.S.market –anincreaseof 26.8percent comparedwith thesameperiodlast year. + Googlekoden by Andreas Ekström. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 11
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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING CASESTUDY Zappos TheU.S.internet shoesellerZapposisworld-famousforitsdevoted customerservice.Thestaffincustomerservicereceivesevenweeks’paid trainingandare thenoffered2000dollars toquit –just toensure that the correct,motivatedpeoplemeet thecustomers.Zapposencouragescustomers toorderadditionalsizesbecauseafreereturn365daysafterpurchaseisseenas part of thebusinessconcept.Thecompanyalsohas therecordfor theworld’slong- est customerservicecall:8hoursand47minutes.Sincestartingin1999,thecom- panyhasgrowninto theworld’slargest onlineshoestore(nowownedbyAmazon), largely thanks toits takeoncustomerservice. +
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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING “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 CASESTUDY Starbucks TheclassiccoffeechainStarbucksexperiencedfinancialdifficultiesin the aftermathof the2008financialcrisisanddecided tomakecoffeedrinking acustomerexperience.Freeinternet access,socketsat the tables tocharge mobilephonesandcomputersandlarger tablesforgroupsandmeetings, werepart of thestrategy tomake theircafesmeetingvenuesandworkplaces. InacollaborationwithApple,musicplayedinStarbuckscafesisavailableoniTunes, whileflat screensincafesshowwhichartistsandsongsarebeingplayed.The toughyears arenot quiteoverforStarbucks,but newcustomerexperiencehasbecomeincreasinglyimpor- tant to theworld’sbiggest coffeechaininorder tocompete. + 14 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
F inding 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 FredrikLarssonincreasescustomer valuebyfocusingontheaftermarket Theaftermarketisincreasinglyimportantinthebattlefor customers,particularlyintheautomotiveindustry.Andthe focusisonsatisfiedcustomers.FredrikLarssonknowswhat ittakestocreateaftermarketproductsthatleadtoimproved customerrelationships. TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM  PHOTO LARS ARDARVE THEEXPERT Fredrik Larsson Title:Team Manager,Graphics Service Owner’s Information Office: 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 tocheck somethingin theevening,Iwon’t have togoout to thecarandfetch theuser manual,”saysLarsson. Manycompaniescontact Semcon about whichdigitalsolutionsare techni- callypossible. “Theinformationshouldbeasrelevant andgoodaspossible.Digitalsolutions areameans tomakeinformationmore accessibleanduser-friendly,and tomeet thedemandsof thefuture.” Hepersonallyworksmostlyonowner informationforVolvoCarsand the newChineseautomakerQorosAuto. Thechallengeis tominimize the time betweenquestionandanswer,asmost peoplewant aquickanswer toaspecific problem.With themobilephoneapps that SemconhasdevelopedforVolvo Cars,therearedifferent ways togo to findinformation:partlyviadifferent key- words,partly throughimages that you canclickondirectly–so-calledhotspot images.Forexample,ifawarninglight comesonin theinstrument panel,you clickonapictureonyourphoneandget theinformationyouneed. “It isalsopossible tocustomize informationandproductsfordifferent marketsordifferent seasons,orgiveyou informationonwhereyoucanbuyspare partsnearby. Theautomotiveindustryisat thefore- front in thisareaandhasseen thebene- fitsofbeingable tooperateabusinessin which thecarowner,forexample,books inforaservice through theirownsystem andwithinitsowndealernetwork.It is alsomucheasier toget feedbackon the informationandhencemakecontinu- ousimprovements.All tocreatesatisfied customers.” “Thereisgreat potentialinusing digitalaftermarket information in many other industries, and we are working to develop new solutions together with our customers.”1 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 15
16 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 17 Today’scarsarepackedwithnewtechnology. ThelatestRangeRoverisnoexception.Butnew technologyisonlyusefulwhenthecustomer understandshowtouseit.ThereforeJaguar LandRoversoughtSemcon’shelp. TEXT GITTAN CEDERVALL PHOTO CHRIS GLOAG HOW IT WORKS
18 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING EmmaSweet Title:GlobalTraining ­Project Manager Office:SemconUK
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 19 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 IanLuckett Title:GlobalProductTrainingManager Office:JaguarLandRover’s training academyinWarwick,UK
20 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING 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.
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 21 1 3 4 5 2 In total36different instructionalvideoshavebeenproduced for thelatest RangeRovermodel,TheAll-NewRangeRover. Thevideosincludeinstructionsfor thefollowingfeatures. BLUETOOTH Bluetoothconnectivity andcompatibilitywithmobile phonesandotherportableelec- tronicsequipment isamust in modernvehicles.Newmodels ofmobileequipment arecon- tinuouslybeingbrought to the market and thevehiclesystems need tobereadilyadjustable to thesenewcomers.Dealersare encouraged tomakesure that a customer’smobilephoneworks flawlesslywith thesystemin thevehicleduring thesales process.Aspecialwebsitehas beenset up tosupport dealers, or thecustomers themselves, toquicklyandeasilyfindcom- patibilityand theright pairing method. NAVIGATION Informationentryinto thenavigationsystem,espe- ciallyofdestinationdetails,has proved tobearelativelycom- monproblemamongcustom- ers,eveninpartsof theworld wherepost codesorzipcodes havebeenwidelyadopted.Re- portsfrom theroad-sideassis- tanceservicesindicate that this isanarearesponsibleformuch frustrationamongcustomers. In theUKaspecialservicehas beenagreedwith themotoring assistanceorganisationAA, whichmeans that theycan nowsenda text message to thecarownerwithalink to the relevant videoinformationclip on theJLRwebsite. KEYLESS ENTRY Thekeylessentry systemenables theowner to access thevehiclewithkeyfobs left inpocketsorhandbags. Thevehicleisautomatically unlockedanditsalarmsystem disengagedwhen thekeyfobis brought withinacertainrange of thevehicle.However,cur- rentlyavehicleisnot automati- callylockedwhen theowner leaves thecarandmovesaway fromit with thekeyfob.Locking thevehicleandenabling the alarmrequire theowner toac- tivelypressabuttonon thekey fob,acare-point stressedin the instructionalvideo. POWERED TAILGATE Thevehiclehasapow- eredsystemforopeningand closingof therear tailgatefor easyaccess to therearloading space.Thissystemwasrecon- figuredfollowingcustomer feed-back.Originally,only the openingof the tailgatecould beoperatedfrom thekeyfob.To closeit usershad topressabut- tonon theinsideof the tailgate. However,as the tailgatelifted uphigh,thisproveddifficult for someuserswhowerenot as tallasotherRangeRoverdrivers. Onepetiteladyownersolved theproblembyhoppingupinto therearofhervehicle,pressing thebutton,and thenquickly jumpingout againbefore the tailgateclosed.In thelatest models,thekeyfobisused to operatebothfunctions,and the height settingadjustment is clearlyexplained. REAR SEAT ­ENTERTAINMENT Thesetupforentertainment in therearof thevehicleisoper- atedfrom thefront seat.This offersparentalcontrol,but can alsobeset togivebackseat passengerscontroloverwhat theywatchorlisten toin the rearof thevehicle.According toIanLuckett thesystemisnot hugelyintuitive.It iswhat it is and theHTO teamhashad to do theirbest tosupport users.It isanexampleofanareawhere thereisstillroomfordesign improvementsinspiredbyfeed- backfrom theHTO team. 1 2 3 4 5 ABOUT Visualcustomersupport WATCH Instruction 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 Betterdesign forcleanerair 22 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
METAL BECOMES PLASTIC Thefront ismadeofmouldedplasticwith integratedfeaturessuchasadisplayand handles.Asolution that savedweight and offerednewdesignpossibilities. ROTATABLE DISPLAY The touchscreenwasasquareshape that canberotateddependingon whether theproduct isusedina free-standingpositionorhanging from theceiling.Thedevelopersalso solvedproblemswith theconnec- tionsbehind thecase,allowingit to beCE-marked. INNOVATIVE FILTER REDUCES HARMFUL DUST Theworkingsunder thecaseweredecidedfrom thestart andconsist of Zehnder’sinnovativeairpurificationfilters.Afilterremoves thesmallerparticles andreduces theamount ofdust in theroom.Thissizeofairpurifierisusedin bakeries,carpenter’s,department storesandsmallerwarehouses,forexample. EASIER TO OPEN FROM ALLANGLES Twoslotsbecameone tofacilitate filterchanges.It wasachallenge todesignanopeningwhichgave access to thefilterfromallangles. Thesolutionwasadoor that opens upwards,like theboot ofacar. ROUNDER SHAPE The topwithitspredeterminedpattern ofholeswasgivenadomedappearance. It wasachallenge toget therounded metalandplasticfront tomeet.Close cooperationwithsuppliersled toan optimalsolution. ONE SIMPLE HANDLE Previously,youhad to removefourscrews toopen thefiltercovers.Now,the onlydoorcanbeopened withahandle.Thismeans smootherandfaster­access when thefilterneeds replacing. MORE DESIGN, ­SMALLER SIZE Theshapeandsizeof the filtercouldnot bechanged. So thedesignershad to workhard tocreatelines andforms that stillled toa frescherappearance. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 23
24 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 NCRhasnearly130years’experienceincashhandlingin banks.Theirworldwideadvancedcashhandlingsystems makeitfaster,saferandmoreefficient.Butintegrating newsystemswitholdonesisachallenge,achallenge thatSemconhastakenon. TEXTHILDA HULTÉN PHOTO CHRIS CLOSE QUICK (AND SAFE) MONEY I n 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.
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 25 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 FionaMcDadeTitle: SeniorSolutionManager, FinancialServicesClient:NCR,Dundee,Scotland About NCR NCR 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.
26 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 JackSundgren Title:Department Manager/ IntegrationSpecialist Office:SemconSweden TCR – How does it work? TCR(Teller CashRecycler) automatescash handlinginbank branchesworldwide, andreducescash processing timeby up to50percent. Thismeans that bankcashiersdonot have tocount and verifybills. TheTCRiden- tifies,counts, validatesandsorts uptoeightnotesper second.Thenotesare storedin8-12rolled storagemodules,ena- blingthestorageof multipledenomina- tionscurrenciesand unfitbanknotesfor disposal.EachTCRcan containupto150dif- ferentdenominations. Themachine usesmultiple technologies,such as3D,visiblelight, infrared,ultraviolet andmagnetic tech- niques toidentify thebanknotes.Up to1300 testsare performedoneach note.Thesystemcan detect counterfeits according toEuro- peanCentralBank regulations. Thesoftware isintegrated withbankingsys- temswhichusedif- ferent APIsandcom- municateswith the banks’ownsystems. Thedatacollected canbe transferred directly to thebank- ingsystems,deposits canberecorded immediatelyin the customer’saccount, andsoon. Multiple securityfea- turescanbeinstalled in thesystem,such aslocks,validation systems,alarmsand timezoneswith delays,making the cashhandlingand storagesafer,creat- ingareducedriskof robbery. 1 2 3 4 5
27 FUTURE BY SEMCON 2.2010 AMRISH GAHARWAR SUBSEA 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 SUN SOLAR 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 GADGET STICK’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 CHARGER EPIPHANY 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 TABLET AAKASH 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 KNIFE THE 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.“
W hen 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 RD. 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. 1 100,000patientsaroundtheworld havehadtheirhearingimproved thankstoaserendipitousdiscovery –thatthebonesoftheskullconduct sound.SemconishelpingCochlear BoneAnchoredSolutionsdevelopthe nextgenerationofimplantstohelp evenmorepeople. TEXTDAVID WILES PHOTO COCHLEAR hearing aid 28 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
MarkFlynn Title:DirectorofResearchandApplications Location:CochlearBoneAnchoredSolutions, Sweden JonaHoffmann Title:Soundandvibrationengineer Location:Semcon,Sweden About the technology Cochlear’s bone conduction implants consist of three main components: 1. SOUND PROCESSOR:Picksupthesoundvibrations. 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. 1 2 3 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 29
30 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 QA GENEVIEVE BELL ANTHROPOLOGIST GenevieveBellof 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 T
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 31 Genevieve Bell Title: Head of User Experience at Intel. Hobbies: travelling,reading,photog- raphy.“And watchingTV 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”. Favouritedestinations:“Inanygivenyear Igo to10-15countriesdoingresearch,and Ilove themallfordifferent reasons.”
32 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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.” GenevieveBell QA GENEVIEVE BELL ANTHROPOLOGIST 3 MANY INTERNETS We 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 ­ANXIETY The 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 CLOUD The 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. 3GenevieveBellon threeemerging technicaltrends
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 33 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 RD. 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
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FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 35 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 T he 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 BillDavis FounderandCEO,Tripbuddy
36 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 GregWoolhead,MartynSweeney,DanielBatchelor Titles:Designengineer,SemconUK 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.
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 37 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 RichardSpringall Title:TechnicalDirector, ­SemconUK Theengineers’ ownfavourites TheSemconengineersMar- tynSweeney,DanielBatchelor andGregWoolheadpickout theirfavouriteTripbuddy features: WASHABLE FLOOR “Dirtysportsequipment isno problemas themarine-grade woodenfloorcanbehosed down,and thewaterdrains intoa tankfromwhichit can be takenawayfromyour campingspot,”saysMartyn. CUSTOMIZED KITCHEN “Customerscanhavewhat- ever theyneedfittedin the kitchen.It doesn’t have tobe asink,acookerandafridge. It couldbeamicrowaveoven orjust achampagnecooler,” saysMartyn. LARGE WHEELS “Havinglargerwheels than anordinarycaravanmakesit stableenoughforoff-roading inmuddyfields.Ihaveasked ifIcanborrow theprototype forgoing tomusicfestivals,” saysGreg. ONE-PIECE BODY “Themouldedmonocoque bodyshellisauniquefeature andit isbonded to thefloor and to thechassis,so there arenojoints that canleak,” saysDaniel. SMART REAR DOOR “Theopeningand thedrop- down tent at thebackare agreat wayofutilising the reardoorfordualpurposes.It providesalot ofextraspace,” saysDaniel. STYLING “It hasaverydistinctive style.Youwouldn’t takeit somewhereandlooseit.At amusicfestival,forinstance, there’dbewhitebox,white box,whitebox,and then the Tripbuddy,”saysGreg. SLIMLINE DESIGN “There’snoneed tofit extra wingmirrorson towing vehiclesas theTripbuddyisno wider thananormalcar.It is easy to towforinexperienced caravandrivers,”saysDaniel.
38 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM, HILDA HULTÉN JOHAN JARNEVING PHOTO ANNA SIGVARDSSON, KARSTEN THORMAELEN JESPER ORRBECK SEMCON BRAINS 38 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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
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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. “Anyonecansuccessfullybuilda functioningmachineonce.When partscomefromdifferent globalsup- pliers,variationcanwreakhavocon thesystem.Regardlessofhowwell thesystemisdesignedeachsupplier onlyfocuseson theirparts,andsmall designvariationscanresult incostly buildstops.” Insteadofhopingfor thebest, WilliamJonesproactivelycontrols thevariationwithin thesystems byapplying therulesofgeometric dimensioningand tolerancing,which in theworldofengineeringisknown asGDT. “GDTisessentiallyadimension- inglanguagebasedonfunctionand mathematicalcalculations.It allows problems tobeidentifiedandsolved in the theoreticalphase.” At themoment,WilliamJones isworking toensure that over150 componentsofamanual transmis- sionforaGermancarmanufacturer not onlyfit together,but alsofunction flawlessly. It israre that everythingworksat thefirst attempt,butWilliam’s team hassuccessfullymanufactured the first perfectly-workinggearboxfor thecustomer. “That’s the thanklesspart of dimensionalmanagement,”says ­William.“Whenwedoareallygood job,no-oneshouldnoticeit at all.” The puzzle builder william 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 isahigh- riskprojectandthepreparationisat leastasexactingastheconditions. HannaZielinska,acalculationengineer specializinginthedesignandproduction ofoil,knowspreciselyhowexacting.After completingherengineeringdegreeat homeinWarsaw,shecametoSemconin 2008. Since2010shehasbeenworking withtheoffshoreindustryinNorway. Muchof theworkinvolvespredicting theunpredictable.Becauseevenifshe sees theability todrawlogicalconclu- sionsashermaindrivingforce,shedares to trust hergut instincts. Hersecondassignment inNorway, anoilplatformforStatoil,wasagood exampleof this. “Weworkedout theentireprocess frominitialsketches toongoingopera- tion.Eachbeam,profileandweldhas to becheckedagainst theforceofwaves, storms,earthquakesandfire.Theparts oftheoilrigcomefromallovertheworld so thelogisticscalculationsincludeboth theweatherandpiratesin theGulfof Aden.Inall,wehadat least 500piecesof data,and thenyouhave todare tolisten toyourintuition.” Thefinishedoilplatformisacom- binationofgut instinct,strict testing anddetailedcalculations.In thecaseof Statoil,Hanna’slogicalanalysisresulted inaweight reductionof600 tonnes. Andeverylossofweight isasmallstep towardsagreeneroilindustry,adevelop- ment that Hannawantscontinue to contribute toin thefuture. hanna zielenska, calculation engineer, semcon sweden BEHINDTHESCENES ATSEMCONBRAINS Wouldlike toknowmoreabout HannahZielinska,herworkin the oilindustryandwhat challenges shehasfoundat Semcon?Watch thefilmat semcon.com
42 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 SEMCON UPDATEWHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEMCON’S WORLD EMPLOYEES AT SEMCON inIndia take theirsocialresponsibility veryseriouslybyorganizingandparticipatinginanumberofma- joreventseachyear. “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 ofTumkur,north-west of Bangalore. “It isimperative that eachchildgetsat least abasiceducation. WevisitedaschoolinBangaloreandorganized the“OneDay KnowledgeTransferProgram”,wherewe talkedabout healthand hygiene,andprovidedbasiccomputerskills,”saysRavishankar. Inaddition toschoolvisits,the teamhasparticipatedin the “ChampionInMe”contest for twoyearsinarow,wherepartici- pantscanchooseif theywant towalkorrunfivekilometres.The purposeis topublicizeandprovidesupport forchildrenwithHIV andAIDSin thecountry. Semconemployees ­supportchildreninIndia
FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 43 Newpartnership ­projectwithglobal Germanautosupplier Semconhasbeenchosenbyaglobal Germanautomotivemanufacturer to developanexistingmodelwithnew architecture. About 150engineerswill beinvolved–40inGermanyand110in Trollhättan,Sweden. “Weareproud tohaveonceagain beenentrustedbyoneofourGerman autocustomers tocompleteamajor project.Thisagreement isfullyinline withSemcon’sstrategyofbeingan independent partnerwithexpertise andcapacityforcompletecardevelop- ment”saysStefanOhlsson,President, AutomotiveRDat Semcon. Theinitialphaseof theproject is expected torununtil theendof2015, with thepossibilityoffurthercollabo- rativeprojects. Continued collaboration with STCC For thesixthyearinarow,Semconis sponsoring thelargestTouringCar championshipinScandinavia,the STCC.Thechampionshipisdecided overeight racesaroundSweden.In addition toclassicracing trackssuch asKnutstorp,KarlskogaandMantorp, therearealso twocityraces:STCC SemconGöteborgCityRaceandSTCC SemconStockholmCityRace. Newheadquarters forSemcon 700 metres north-north-east – this is how far Semcon’s HQ in Göteborg is moving. “Ourambitionis tocreateacost- effectiveoffice that promotespersonal interaction.Thebuildingisalsoclearly designedforproject delivery,abusi- nessmodelwhichiscontinuouslyin- creasing,”saysSemcon’sCEOMarkus Granlund. ThemoveisscheduledforJanuary 2015. Semcon.comgetsresponsive Semconhadasmallsolution forTetraPakinLund IN FEBRUARY anewversionofSemcon.comwasrolledout,with so-calledresponsivedesign.Thismeans that thepagecontent automaticallyadapts towhicheverdevice thevisitorisusing- whetherit isacomputer,tablet ormobilephone. “Visitors toSemcon.comareusingincreasinglydiverseplatforms, andasacompanywith technologyat theforefront,it isimportant that weoffervisitorsa thoughtfulandaccessibleexperience,”says MadeleineAndersson,GlobalMarketingOnlineManager. Thenewversionfocuseson thebenefitsofwhat Semcondeliv- ers,but thecontent willbedevelopedfurtherduring theyear. “Wehavemadesomedesignadjustments,but it isabovealla technicalupgrade toimproveaccessforwebpagevisitors,”says Madeleine. SIK – THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE forFoodandBiotechnologyin Göteborg-iscollaboratingwithTetraPakProcessingSystemsABto developmethodsformixingpowder-basedfoods,suchasspices. Previously,SIK had been usingTetra 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 typeofassignment ispart ofoureverydayworkandisa verygoodexampleofwhat weactuallydo,”saysKristian. SemcondesignerGianPinotticonstructedaminiaturecopyof themixer,withamoremanageablevolumeof twolitres,whichis nowoperatingat SIK’spremises. Apart fromsavingspace,theresearch teamcannowspend more timeonactualresearch,anddon’t hesitate toconduct another test. Inaddition,themixerwasmade transparent,whichmeans that for thefirst timewhat happens to thepowderin themix- turecanbeseen. From 200 litres to two.Volumes shrank by 99 per cent when Semcon built a powder mixer forTetraPak.
A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE #1 2013 futurebysemcon#12013 AFTER WORK name Pär Ekström age 41 at 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: “Dancingislike beingachildagain” 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 “EightyearsagoIdecidedthatIwantedtotry somethingnewinmyfreetime.Istarteddancing tangoandlovedthefact thatitwasspontaneous, freeandfun. 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. + TEXT:JOHANNALAGERFORSPHOTO:EMELIEASPLUND IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION? JAGUARLANDROVER ­LISTENSTOTHECUSTOMER INTEL’SGENEVIEVEBELLCHANGES OURVIEWSOFTECHNOLOGY SAFERMONEYAT THEBANKWITHNCR BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING. CUSTOMER IS KING

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Customer is king (Future by Semcon Magazine # 1 2013)

  • 1. A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE #1 2013 futurebysemcon#12013 AFTER WORK name Pär Ekström age 41 at 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: “Dancingislike beingachildagain” 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 “EightyearsagoIdecidedthatIwantedtotry somethingnewinmyfreetime.Istarteddancing tangoandlovedthefact thatitwasspontaneous, freeandfun. 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. + TEXT:JOHANNALAGERFORSPHOTO:EMELIEASPLUND IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION? JAGUARLANDROVER ­LISTENSTOTHECUSTOMER INTEL’SGENEVIEVEBELLCHANGES OURVIEWSOFTECHNOLOGY SAFERMONEYAT THEBANKWITHNCR BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING. CUSTOMER IS KING
  • 2. 2 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 CONTENTS #1.2013ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING.
  • 3. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 3 40MEETSEMCON’S SHARPESTMINDS InSemconBrainsyouwillmeetHanna Zielinska,anoilexpertwithintuition, PanajotaVasilopoulou,whoensures that therightmedicinesaresupplied topharmacies,andWilliamJones,who keepstrackofallthepiecesinagearbox. 28 GROUNDBREAKING HEARINGAIDS Cochlear’sbone-anchoredhearingaids haveimprovedthehearingof100000 peoplearoundtheworld.Semconis helpingtodevelopthenextgeneration ofhearingaids. Website: semcon.com Letters: Future by Semcon, Semcon AB, 417 80 Göteborg, Sweden. Change of address: future@semcon.com Publisher: Anders Atterling, tel: : +46 (0)70-447 28 19, email: anders.atterling@semcon.com Semcon project manager: Madeleine Andersson, tel: +46 (0)76-569 83 31, email: madeleine.andersson@semcon.com Editorial production: Spoon. Editor: Katarina Misic. Designer:Mathias Lövström.URL: spoon.se Repro: Spoon. Printing:TrydellsTryckeri,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 30ANANTHROPOLOGIST AMONGENGINEERS GenevieveBellhasbeennamedasone oftheworld’smostcreativepeople.As ananthropologistatIntelshegetsen- gineerstolookat thefuturedifferently. Afuturewheretechnologyisabout people. 34THECARAVANOF THE FUTUREISHERE TheentrepreneurBillDaviswantedto developtheultimatecaravantoattract newcustomergroupstotheroads.The result:theprize-winningTripbuddy.To helphim,hechoseSemcon. MARKUSGRANLUND,CEO,SEMCON
  • 4. 4 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 PEOPLE #1.2013PEOPLE IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON patricsvensson, designproject manager,semcon sweden What rolecanindustrialdesign playincustomerrelations? “Aproduct that isappreciatedby theuser,bothemotionallyand functionality-wise,strengthens thebrand.Theuser- theend customer-hasapositiveat- titude to theproduct and thus thecompanyproducingand selling theproduct.Industrial designis thekey toasuccess- fulproduct andanimportant linkbetween theuserand 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. ianluckett,globalproducttrainingmanager, jaguarlandrover,uk What arethechallengesinintroducingnew,user-friendlytechnology incars? “Toensurecustomersatisfactionand tomaximise theuseof technical featuresare themainchallengesfor theintroductionofnew,user- friendly technologyinvehicles.Toachieve that,youneed tomakesure that thecustomerunderstandswhat the technologydoesandhowit isoperated.” fionamcdade,seniorsolutionmanager,ncr,scotland Howcanyourcashsolutionsforbankshelptheircustomerrelations? “Ourmachinessimplifycashhandlingby takingcareofevaluating,countingandsort- ing thenotes,whichmeans that staffhavemore timefor thecustomer.Thesecurity ofusingournotemachinesallowsbanks tobecomemoreretailer-like,without bul- letproofglassandbarsbetweencustomersandstaff.” 16 PAGE 10 PAGE 24 PAGE
  • 5. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 5 panajotavasilopoulou,seniorquality consultant,semconsweden Howcanthepharmaceuticaltradeimproveitscustomerrelations? “In thisindustry,customers takeit forgranted that manufacturing andpackagingisdoneaccording to theexisting toughlawsand regulations.Thereforeit isdoublyimportant toensurequality,soas not todamage,but tostrengthen theconfidence thecustomersfeel.” markflynn,directorofresearch andapplications,cochlearbone anchoredsolutions,sweden Howimportant arecustomerrelationsinyourwork todevelopbetterhearingaids? “Customerrelationsareabsolutelyfundamentalin thisarea.Thegreat majorityofourresearchactivities arecompletedincollaborationwithuniversitiesand surgeonsandotheracademicsandclinicians.Without their timeandinput andourabilitytowork together, thepaceofinnovationwouldbemuchslower.” 38 PAGE williamjones,dimensional management,semcon germany What roledoyouthinkcustomer ­relationswillplayinthecarindustry in thefuture? “Customerrelationsare thebe-alland end-all.Trust andbrandloyaltyhave alwaysbeenimportant in thecarindus- tryandI think theywillbeevenmore important in thefuture.It’swhat can distinguishonecompanyfromanother. Customerloyaltyandconfidence takes years tobuild,but iseasy tolose.” 42 PAGE 28 PAGE
  • 8. 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. CASESTUDY Southwest Airlines “Weseeourselvesasacustomerservicecompanywhichhappens tofly airplanes”isoneofSouthwest Airlines’mottos.Personalserviceisoneof themainreasons that it hasbecome theworld’slargest lowcost airline.The “Bagsflyfree”campaignwasasuccessin2009.Southwest distanced them- selvesfrom theircompetitorsbyallowingpassengers to take twobagson-board forfree.Theyhavealsostreamlined theboardinganddisembarkingprocesses.It takes20minutes toemptyandboardaSouthwest planewithnewpassengersfrom the timeit has taxiedin.TheairlineisAmerica’smost popular.Incomein2012was$620million. + 8 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 9. 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:NIKE FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 9
  • 10. P atric 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 wasagoodsignforuswhenwe heardabout agrey-hairedwoman whochoseablackaidinsteadofsilver, becauseshelikedit andwanted tohigh- light it,”saysSvensson. Anindustrialdesignerisusually involved throughout,from theconcept until theproduct ships.At a timewhen it israrelypossible tomakerevolutionary stepsin thedevelopment process,it is thesmallimprovements that determine howanewproduct willbereceived. It isin theresearchworkandcontact PatricSvenssonseesindustrial ­designasthewaytothecustomer Auser-friendlyandstylishproductthatworks–accordingto industrialdesignerPatricSvenssonthisisfoundationofagood relationshipbetweencustomerandproducer.Thinkingdesign allthewayfromconcepttoproductionisthekeytosuccess. TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM PHOTO LARS ARDARVE THEEXPERT Patric Svensson Title: Design Project Manager Office: ­Semcon,Sweden withusers that thelargest opportunities exist.Howdo theyexperiencecurrent products?Are theyuser-friendly?What would theylike toimprove? “Theresult of theinitialresearchwas used tocreateadesignplatform,adocu- ment that streamlines thewaywork continues.Wedon’t spendalot of time ondesignideasbeforeweand thecus- tomerknowwhat wewant todo.” Theydevelopaconcept whichis then processedintoafinisheddesign–all the timeusing thedesignplatformas asupport.When thedesigners’work playsmoreofarole,Svenssonandhis colleaguesareby theirsideassupport in thewholeprocess. “Wefollowup thedesignintentionso that theperceivedfeelingiswhat was intended. Industrialdesignisusedinallkinds ofproducts,fromsmallhearingaids to largemachines.Design,regardlessof the product,instilsasenseofquality– the product iswell thought out.It strength- ensconfidenceand thus thebrand.” “Identifyingseeminglysmallproblems earlyin theresearchprocesscanlead to significant benefitswith thefinished product and theuser’sexperienceofit.It shows that youcareandisakey togood customerrelations.” Arecent exampleisapatient handset forhospitalswitharangeoffunctions. Everyone,regardlessofageandphysical andmentalstatus,must obviouslybe ablecallforhelp,so theyhavehigh- lighted theergonomicalarmbuttonin a tactileandvisualway.But thereisalso asmallerattentionbutton touseifyou want aglassofwater,forexample. “Right now thereisonlyonebutton forallalarms,whichcanlead topatients feeling that theyareinterferingand makeit harderfornurses toprioritize theirwork.Aseeminglysmalldetailsuch as theattentionbuttoncancreatebetter conditionsforbothnurseandpatient,” saysSvensson.1 10 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 11. 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- FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING “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 CASESTUDY Lexus Just afewmonthsafter thelaunchofToyota’sLexusluxurybrandin the U.S.,theywereforced torecall8,000carswhenafault with thecruise controlwasdetected.It issaid that youcouldalmost hear thecheersfrom Stuttgart andDetroit whencompetitorsgot windof theproblem.Lexus wrotealetterofapology toallitscustomers.Localdealerscollectedeachcar and thecustomersgot afreeloancaruntil therepairwascompleted.All there- pairedcarswerereturnedfreshlywashedandwithafull tank.If therewasnoLexusdealer in theneighbourhoodLexusstaffflew to thecustomerandfixed theproblemon-sitein the customer’sowngarage.InJanuary2013Lexussold16211carsin theU.S.market –anincreaseof 26.8percent comparedwith thesameperiodlast year. + Googlekoden by Andreas Ekström. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 11
  • 12. 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING CASESTUDY Zappos TheU.S.internet shoesellerZapposisworld-famousforitsdevoted customerservice.Thestaffincustomerservicereceivesevenweeks’paid trainingandare thenoffered2000dollars toquit –just toensure that the correct,motivatedpeoplemeet thecustomers.Zapposencouragescustomers toorderadditionalsizesbecauseafreereturn365daysafterpurchaseisseenas part of thebusinessconcept.Thecompanyalsohas therecordfor theworld’slong- est customerservicecall:8hoursand47minutes.Sincestartingin1999,thecom- panyhasgrowninto theworld’slargest onlineshoestore(nowownedbyAmazon), largely thanks toits takeoncustomerservice. +
  • 13. 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
  • 14. 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING “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 CASESTUDY Starbucks TheclassiccoffeechainStarbucksexperiencedfinancialdifficultiesin the aftermathof the2008financialcrisisanddecided tomakecoffeedrinking acustomerexperience.Freeinternet access,socketsat the tables tocharge mobilephonesandcomputersandlarger tablesforgroupsandmeetings, werepart of thestrategy tomake theircafesmeetingvenuesandworkplaces. InacollaborationwithApple,musicplayedinStarbuckscafesisavailableoniTunes, whileflat screensincafesshowwhichartistsandsongsarebeingplayed.The toughyears arenot quiteoverforStarbucks,but newcustomerexperiencehasbecomeincreasinglyimpor- tant to theworld’sbiggest coffeechaininorder tocompete. + 14 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 15. F inding 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 FredrikLarssonincreasescustomer valuebyfocusingontheaftermarket Theaftermarketisincreasinglyimportantinthebattlefor customers,particularlyintheautomotiveindustry.Andthe focusisonsatisfiedcustomers.FredrikLarssonknowswhat ittakestocreateaftermarketproductsthatleadtoimproved customerrelationships. TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM  PHOTO LARS ARDARVE THEEXPERT Fredrik Larsson Title:Team Manager,Graphics Service Owner’s Information Office: 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 tocheck somethingin theevening,Iwon’t have togoout to thecarandfetch theuser manual,”saysLarsson. Manycompaniescontact Semcon about whichdigitalsolutionsare techni- callypossible. “Theinformationshouldbeasrelevant andgoodaspossible.Digitalsolutions areameans tomakeinformationmore accessibleanduser-friendly,and tomeet thedemandsof thefuture.” Hepersonallyworksmostlyonowner informationforVolvoCarsand the newChineseautomakerQorosAuto. Thechallengeis tominimize the time betweenquestionandanswer,asmost peoplewant aquickanswer toaspecific problem.With themobilephoneapps that SemconhasdevelopedforVolvo Cars,therearedifferent ways togo to findinformation:partlyviadifferent key- words,partly throughimages that you canclickondirectly–so-calledhotspot images.Forexample,ifawarninglight comesonin theinstrument panel,you clickonapictureonyourphoneandget theinformationyouneed. “It isalsopossible tocustomize informationandproductsfordifferent marketsordifferent seasons,orgiveyou informationonwhereyoucanbuyspare partsnearby. Theautomotiveindustryisat thefore- front in thisareaandhasseen thebene- fitsofbeingable tooperateabusinessin which thecarowner,forexample,books inforaservice through theirownsystem andwithinitsowndealernetwork.It is alsomucheasier toget feedbackon the informationandhencemakecontinu- ousimprovements.All tocreatesatisfied customers.” “Thereisgreat potentialinusing digitalaftermarket information in many other industries, and we are working to develop new solutions together with our customers.”1 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 15
  • 16. 16 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING
  • 17. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 17 Today’scarsarepackedwithnewtechnology. ThelatestRangeRoverisnoexception.Butnew technologyisonlyusefulwhenthecustomer understandshowtouseit.ThereforeJaguar LandRoversoughtSemcon’shelp. TEXT GITTAN CEDERVALL PHOTO CHRIS GLOAG HOW IT WORKS
  • 18. 18 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING EmmaSweet Title:GlobalTraining ­Project Manager Office:SemconUK
  • 19. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 19 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 IanLuckett Title:GlobalProductTrainingManager Office:JaguarLandRover’s training academyinWarwick,UK
  • 20. 20 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 FOCUS: CUSTOMER IS KING 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.
  • 21. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 21 1 3 4 5 2 In total36different instructionalvideoshavebeenproduced for thelatest RangeRovermodel,TheAll-NewRangeRover. Thevideosincludeinstructionsfor thefollowingfeatures. BLUETOOTH Bluetoothconnectivity andcompatibilitywithmobile phonesandotherportableelec- tronicsequipment isamust in modernvehicles.Newmodels ofmobileequipment arecon- tinuouslybeingbrought to the market and thevehiclesystems need tobereadilyadjustable to thesenewcomers.Dealersare encouraged tomakesure that a customer’smobilephoneworks flawlesslywith thesystemin thevehicleduring thesales process.Aspecialwebsitehas beenset up tosupport dealers, or thecustomers themselves, toquicklyandeasilyfindcom- patibilityand theright pairing method. NAVIGATION Informationentryinto thenavigationsystem,espe- ciallyofdestinationdetails,has proved tobearelativelycom- monproblemamongcustom- ers,eveninpartsof theworld wherepost codesorzipcodes havebeenwidelyadopted.Re- portsfrom theroad-sideassis- tanceservicesindicate that this isanarearesponsibleformuch frustrationamongcustomers. In theUKaspecialservicehas beenagreedwith themotoring assistanceorganisationAA, whichmeans that theycan nowsenda text message to thecarownerwithalink to the relevant videoinformationclip on theJLRwebsite. KEYLESS ENTRY Thekeylessentry systemenables theowner to access thevehiclewithkeyfobs left inpocketsorhandbags. Thevehicleisautomatically unlockedanditsalarmsystem disengagedwhen thekeyfobis brought withinacertainrange of thevehicle.However,cur- rentlyavehicleisnot automati- callylockedwhen theowner leaves thecarandmovesaway fromit with thekeyfob.Locking thevehicleandenabling the alarmrequire theowner toac- tivelypressabuttonon thekey fob,acare-point stressedin the instructionalvideo. POWERED TAILGATE Thevehiclehasapow- eredsystemforopeningand closingof therear tailgatefor easyaccess to therearloading space.Thissystemwasrecon- figuredfollowingcustomer feed-back.Originally,only the openingof the tailgatecould beoperatedfrom thekeyfob.To closeit usershad topressabut- tonon theinsideof the tailgate. However,as the tailgatelifted uphigh,thisproveddifficult for someuserswhowerenot as tallasotherRangeRoverdrivers. Onepetiteladyownersolved theproblembyhoppingupinto therearofhervehicle,pressing thebutton,and thenquickly jumpingout againbefore the tailgateclosed.In thelatest models,thekeyfobisused to operatebothfunctions,and the height settingadjustment is clearlyexplained. REAR SEAT ­ENTERTAINMENT Thesetupforentertainment in therearof thevehicleisoper- atedfrom thefront seat.This offersparentalcontrol,but can alsobeset togivebackseat passengerscontroloverwhat theywatchorlisten toin the rearof thevehicle.According toIanLuckett thesystemisnot hugelyintuitive.It iswhat it is and theHTO teamhashad to do theirbest tosupport users.It isanexampleofanareawhere thereisstillroomfordesign improvementsinspiredbyfeed- backfrom theHTO team. 1 2 3 4 5 ABOUT Visualcustomersupport WATCH Instruction videos for the All-New Range Rover
  • 22. 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 Betterdesign forcleanerair 22 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 23. METAL BECOMES PLASTIC Thefront ismadeofmouldedplasticwith integratedfeaturessuchasadisplayand handles.Asolution that savedweight and offerednewdesignpossibilities. ROTATABLE DISPLAY The touchscreenwasasquareshape that canberotateddependingon whether theproduct isusedina free-standingpositionorhanging from theceiling.Thedevelopersalso solvedproblemswith theconnec- tionsbehind thecase,allowingit to beCE-marked. INNOVATIVE FILTER REDUCES HARMFUL DUST Theworkingsunder thecaseweredecidedfrom thestart andconsist of Zehnder’sinnovativeairpurificationfilters.Afilterremoves thesmallerparticles andreduces theamount ofdust in theroom.Thissizeofairpurifierisusedin bakeries,carpenter’s,department storesandsmallerwarehouses,forexample. EASIER TO OPEN FROM ALLANGLES Twoslotsbecameone tofacilitate filterchanges.It wasachallenge todesignanopeningwhichgave access to thefilterfromallangles. Thesolutionwasadoor that opens upwards,like theboot ofacar. ROUNDER SHAPE The topwithitspredeterminedpattern ofholeswasgivenadomedappearance. It wasachallenge toget therounded metalandplasticfront tomeet.Close cooperationwithsuppliersled toan optimalsolution. ONE SIMPLE HANDLE Previously,youhad to removefourscrews toopen thefiltercovers.Now,the onlydoorcanbeopened withahandle.Thismeans smootherandfaster­access when thefilterneeds replacing. MORE DESIGN, ­SMALLER SIZE Theshapeandsizeof the filtercouldnot bechanged. So thedesignershad to workhard tocreatelines andforms that stillled toa frescherappearance. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 23
  • 24. 24 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 NCRhasnearly130years’experienceincashhandlingin banks.Theirworldwideadvancedcashhandlingsystems makeitfaster,saferandmoreefficient.Butintegrating newsystemswitholdonesisachallenge,achallenge thatSemconhastakenon. TEXTHILDA HULTÉN PHOTO CHRIS CLOSE QUICK (AND SAFE) MONEY I n 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.
  • 25. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 25 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 FionaMcDadeTitle: SeniorSolutionManager, FinancialServicesClient:NCR,Dundee,Scotland About NCR NCR 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.
  • 26. 26 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 JackSundgren Title:Department Manager/ IntegrationSpecialist Office:SemconSweden TCR – How does it work? TCR(Teller CashRecycler) automatescash handlinginbank branchesworldwide, andreducescash processing timeby up to50percent. Thismeans that bankcashiersdonot have tocount and verifybills. TheTCRiden- tifies,counts, validatesandsorts uptoeightnotesper second.Thenotesare storedin8-12rolled storagemodules,ena- blingthestorageof multipledenomina- tionscurrenciesand unfitbanknotesfor disposal.EachTCRcan containupto150dif- ferentdenominations. Themachine usesmultiple technologies,such as3D,visiblelight, infrared,ultraviolet andmagnetic tech- niques toidentify thebanknotes.Up to1300 testsare performedoneach note.Thesystemcan detect counterfeits according toEuro- peanCentralBank regulations. Thesoftware isintegrated withbankingsys- temswhichusedif- ferent APIsandcom- municateswith the banks’ownsystems. Thedatacollected canbe transferred directly to thebank- ingsystems,deposits canberecorded immediatelyin the customer’saccount, andsoon. Multiple securityfea- turescanbeinstalled in thesystem,such aslocks,validation systems,alarmsand timezoneswith delays,making the cashhandlingand storagesafer,creat- ingareducedriskof robbery. 1 2 3 4 5
  • 27. 27 FUTURE BY SEMCON 2.2010 AMRISH GAHARWAR SUBSEA 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 SUN SOLAR 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 GADGET STICK’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 CHARGER EPIPHANY 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 TABLET AAKASH 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 KNIFE THE 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.“
  • 28. W hen 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 RD. 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. 1 100,000patientsaroundtheworld havehadtheirhearingimproved thankstoaserendipitousdiscovery –thatthebonesoftheskullconduct sound.SemconishelpingCochlear BoneAnchoredSolutionsdevelopthe nextgenerationofimplantstohelp evenmorepeople. TEXTDAVID WILES PHOTO COCHLEAR hearing aid 28 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 29. MarkFlynn Title:DirectorofResearchandApplications Location:CochlearBoneAnchoredSolutions, Sweden JonaHoffmann Title:Soundandvibrationengineer Location:Semcon,Sweden About the technology Cochlear’s bone conduction implants consist of three main components: 1. SOUND PROCESSOR:Picksupthesoundvibrations. 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. 1 2 3 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 29
  • 30. 30 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 QA GENEVIEVE BELL ANTHROPOLOGIST GenevieveBellof 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 T
  • 31. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 31 Genevieve Bell Title: Head of User Experience at Intel. Hobbies: travelling,reading,photog- raphy.“And watchingTV 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”. Favouritedestinations:“Inanygivenyear Igo to10-15countriesdoingresearch,and Ilove themallfordifferent reasons.”
  • 32. 32 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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.” GenevieveBell QA GENEVIEVE BELL ANTHROPOLOGIST 3 MANY INTERNETS We 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 ­ANXIETY The 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 CLOUD The 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. 3GenevieveBellon threeemerging technicaltrends
  • 33. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 33 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 RD. 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
  • 34. 34 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013
  • 35. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 35 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 T he 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 BillDavis FounderandCEO,Tripbuddy
  • 36. 36 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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 GregWoolhead,MartynSweeney,DanielBatchelor Titles:Designengineer,SemconUK 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.
  • 37. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 37 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 RichardSpringall Title:TechnicalDirector, ­SemconUK Theengineers’ ownfavourites TheSemconengineersMar- tynSweeney,DanielBatchelor andGregWoolheadpickout theirfavouriteTripbuddy features: WASHABLE FLOOR “Dirtysportsequipment isno problemas themarine-grade woodenfloorcanbehosed down,and thewaterdrains intoa tankfromwhichit can be takenawayfromyour campingspot,”saysMartyn. CUSTOMIZED KITCHEN “Customerscanhavewhat- ever theyneedfittedin the kitchen.It doesn’t have tobe asink,acookerandafridge. It couldbeamicrowaveoven orjust achampagnecooler,” saysMartyn. LARGE WHEELS “Havinglargerwheels than anordinarycaravanmakesit stableenoughforoff-roading inmuddyfields.Ihaveasked ifIcanborrow theprototype forgoing tomusicfestivals,” saysGreg. ONE-PIECE BODY “Themouldedmonocoque bodyshellisauniquefeature andit isbonded to thefloor and to thechassis,so there arenojoints that canleak,” saysDaniel. SMART REAR DOOR “Theopeningand thedrop- down tent at thebackare agreat wayofutilising the reardoorfordualpurposes.It providesalot ofextraspace,” saysDaniel. STYLING “It hasaverydistinctive style.Youwouldn’t takeit somewhereandlooseit.At amusicfestival,forinstance, there’dbewhitebox,white box,whitebox,and then the Tripbuddy,”saysGreg. SLIMLINE DESIGN “There’snoneed tofit extra wingmirrorson towing vehiclesas theTripbuddyisno wider thananormalcar.It is easy to towforinexperienced caravandrivers,”saysDaniel.
  • 38. 38 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 TEXT FLORENCE OPPENHEIM, HILDA HULTÉN JOHAN JARNEVING PHOTO ANNA SIGVARDSSON, KARSTEN THORMAELEN JESPER ORRBECK SEMCON BRAINS 38 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 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
  • 39. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.20103 39FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 39
  • 40. 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. “Anyonecansuccessfullybuilda functioningmachineonce.When partscomefromdifferent globalsup- pliers,variationcanwreakhavocon thesystem.Regardlessofhowwell thesystemisdesignedeachsupplier onlyfocuseson theirparts,andsmall designvariationscanresult incostly buildstops.” Insteadofhopingfor thebest, WilliamJonesproactivelycontrols thevariationwithin thesystems byapplying therulesofgeometric dimensioningand tolerancing,which in theworldofengineeringisknown asGDT. “GDTisessentiallyadimension- inglanguagebasedonfunctionand mathematicalcalculations.It allows problems tobeidentifiedandsolved in the theoreticalphase.” At themoment,WilliamJones isworking toensure that over150 componentsofamanual transmis- sionforaGermancarmanufacturer not onlyfit together,but alsofunction flawlessly. It israre that everythingworksat thefirst attempt,butWilliam’s team hassuccessfullymanufactured the first perfectly-workinggearboxfor thecustomer. “That’s the thanklesspart of dimensionalmanagement,”says ­William.“Whenwedoareallygood job,no-oneshouldnoticeit at all.” The puzzle builder william jones, dimensional management, semcon germany SEMCON BRAINS
  • 41. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.20103 41FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 41 The oil expert EXTRACTING OIL AT SEA isahigh- riskprojectandthepreparationisat leastasexactingastheconditions. HannaZielinska,acalculationengineer specializinginthedesignandproduction ofoil,knowspreciselyhowexacting.After completingherengineeringdegreeat homeinWarsaw,shecametoSemconin 2008. Since2010shehasbeenworking withtheoffshoreindustryinNorway. Muchof theworkinvolvespredicting theunpredictable.Becauseevenifshe sees theability todrawlogicalconclu- sionsashermaindrivingforce,shedares to trust hergut instincts. Hersecondassignment inNorway, anoilplatformforStatoil,wasagood exampleof this. “Weworkedout theentireprocess frominitialsketches toongoingopera- tion.Eachbeam,profileandweldhas to becheckedagainst theforceofwaves, storms,earthquakesandfire.Theparts oftheoilrigcomefromallovertheworld so thelogisticscalculationsincludeboth theweatherandpiratesin theGulfof Aden.Inall,wehadat least 500piecesof data,and thenyouhave todare tolisten toyourintuition.” Thefinishedoilplatformisacom- binationofgut instinct,strict testing anddetailedcalculations.In thecaseof Statoil,Hanna’slogicalanalysisresulted inaweight reductionof600 tonnes. Andeverylossofweight isasmallstep towardsagreeneroilindustry,adevelop- ment that Hannawantscontinue to contribute toin thefuture. hanna zielenska, calculation engineer, semcon sweden BEHINDTHESCENES ATSEMCONBRAINS Wouldlike toknowmoreabout HannahZielinska,herworkin the oilindustryandwhat challenges shehasfoundat Semcon?Watch thefilmat semcon.com
  • 42. 42 FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 SEMCON UPDATEWHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEMCON’S WORLD EMPLOYEES AT SEMCON inIndia take theirsocialresponsibility veryseriouslybyorganizingandparticipatinginanumberofma- joreventseachyear. “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 ofTumkur,north-west of Bangalore. “It isimperative that eachchildgetsat least abasiceducation. WevisitedaschoolinBangaloreandorganized the“OneDay KnowledgeTransferProgram”,wherewe talkedabout healthand hygiene,andprovidedbasiccomputerskills,”saysRavishankar. Inaddition toschoolvisits,the teamhasparticipatedin the “ChampionInMe”contest for twoyearsinarow,wherepartici- pantscanchooseif theywant towalkorrunfivekilometres.The purposeis topublicizeandprovidesupport forchildrenwithHIV andAIDSin thecountry. Semconemployees ­supportchildreninIndia
  • 43. FUTURE BY SEMCON 1.2013 43 Newpartnership ­projectwithglobal Germanautosupplier Semconhasbeenchosenbyaglobal Germanautomotivemanufacturer to developanexistingmodelwithnew architecture. About 150engineerswill beinvolved–40inGermanyand110in Trollhättan,Sweden. “Weareproud tohaveonceagain beenentrustedbyoneofourGerman autocustomers tocompleteamajor project.Thisagreement isfullyinline withSemcon’sstrategyofbeingan independent partnerwithexpertise andcapacityforcompletecardevelop- ment”saysStefanOhlsson,President, AutomotiveRDat Semcon. Theinitialphaseof theproject is expected torununtil theendof2015, with thepossibilityoffurthercollabo- rativeprojects. Continued collaboration with STCC For thesixthyearinarow,Semconis sponsoring thelargestTouringCar championshipinScandinavia,the STCC.Thechampionshipisdecided overeight racesaroundSweden.In addition toclassicracing trackssuch asKnutstorp,KarlskogaandMantorp, therearealso twocityraces:STCC SemconGöteborgCityRaceandSTCC SemconStockholmCityRace. Newheadquarters forSemcon 700 metres north-north-east – this is how far Semcon’s HQ in Göteborg is moving. “Ourambitionis tocreateacost- effectiveoffice that promotespersonal interaction.Thebuildingisalsoclearly designedforproject delivery,abusi- nessmodelwhichiscontinuouslyin- creasing,”saysSemcon’sCEOMarkus Granlund. ThemoveisscheduledforJanuary 2015. Semcon.comgetsresponsive Semconhadasmallsolution forTetraPakinLund IN FEBRUARY anewversionofSemcon.comwasrolledout,with so-calledresponsivedesign.Thismeans that thepagecontent automaticallyadapts towhicheverdevice thevisitorisusing- whetherit isacomputer,tablet ormobilephone. “Visitors toSemcon.comareusingincreasinglydiverseplatforms, andasacompanywith technologyat theforefront,it isimportant that weoffervisitorsa thoughtfulandaccessibleexperience,”says MadeleineAndersson,GlobalMarketingOnlineManager. Thenewversionfocuseson thebenefitsofwhat Semcondeliv- ers,but thecontent willbedevelopedfurtherduring theyear. “Wehavemadesomedesignadjustments,but it isabovealla technicalupgrade toimproveaccessforwebpagevisitors,”says Madeleine. SIK – THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE forFoodandBiotechnologyin Göteborg-iscollaboratingwithTetraPakProcessingSystemsABto developmethodsformixingpowder-basedfoods,suchasspices. Previously,SIK had been usingTetra 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 typeofassignment ispart ofoureverydayworkandisa verygoodexampleofwhat weactuallydo,”saysKristian. SemcondesignerGianPinotticonstructedaminiaturecopyof themixer,withamoremanageablevolumeof twolitres,whichis nowoperatingat SIK’spremises. Apart fromsavingspace,theresearch teamcannowspend more timeonactualresearch,anddon’t hesitate toconduct another test. Inaddition,themixerwasmade transparent,whichmeans that for thefirst timewhat happens to thepowderin themix- turecanbeseen. From 200 litres to two.Volumes shrank by 99 per cent when Semcon built a powder mixer forTetraPak.
  • 44. A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE #1 2013 futurebysemcon#12013 AFTER WORK name Pär Ekström age 41 at 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: “Dancingislike beingachildagain” 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 “EightyearsagoIdecidedthatIwantedtotry somethingnewinmyfreetime.Istarteddancing tangoandlovedthefact thatitwasspontaneous, freeandfun. 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. + TEXT:JOHANNALAGERFORSPHOTO:EMELIEASPLUND IN A WORLD WHERE CUSTOMER RELATIONS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE – DO YOU KNOW HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION? JAGUARLANDROVER ­LISTENSTOTHECUSTOMER INTEL’SGENEVIEVEBELLCHANGES OURVIEWSOFTECHNOLOGY SAFERMONEYAT THEBANKWITHNCR BE KING FOR A DAY! PRESS ALONG THE PERFORATIONS AND ATTACH WITH STRING. CUSTOMER IS KING