Some companies have a wall of fame. We have “The Wall of Innovation.” It’s a place where our marketing and engineering teams meet to discuss problems and develop solutions for unmet needs. You might have seen a similar approach if you’ve used Agile practices, where a task board is set up to quickly, intuitively graph project milestones. We populate The Wall with Sticky-notes that define the problem, relevant concepts and concerns and even photos of the install, so we can get the perspective essential to seeing the big picture and the details all at once. An important part of my role is to get out into the field, exchange thoughts with customers and get insight into everyday processes firsthand. That direct contact is key to innovation and engineering solutions. Sometimes I learn that people in the field don’t even realize that there’s a problem – it’s our job to find them – because they’ve put together a workaround that gets the job done but isn’t as efficient, accurate or reliable, or create the most value from their investment in our products.
Field Visits Create Opportunity for Innovation
Then again, customers occasionally alert us of issues that escaped the design team’s thorough development process and send us back to the drawing board. While we design all our equipment for challenging applications, sometimes there are new requirements and expectations for our products. Our marketing and engineering teams always love to take a crack at building new solutions for our customers. Earlier this year, an unknown problem was reported to marketing via pictures and a functioning prototype solution was drawn up by engineering within 72 hours. This is just one example of how with the help of The Wall and field visits, our team of engineers and marketing professionals are able to fix any problem thrown at them!
Your Avenue of Communication
Every company approaches customer problems in its own way. At Micro Motion, we take pride in the fact that our marketing team is technically savvy; as your first point of contact, they can grasp the issues that arise in the field. And they know when it’s best to get engineering involved, because sometimes it takes “a village” to find the perfect solution, regardless of whether there is commercial advantage for us. The Wall has many advantages, but the most important one is that it gives you a direct line to our marketing and engineering teams. That gives us the opportunity to develop products and enhancements that improve how our equipment works in the field and the value you can realize when you invest in Micro Motion solutions. So, I encourage you to send us your pictures and help us, help you! We would love to hear from you: [email protected]
