Much of the problem solving that occurs in the manufacturing world involves face-to-face interactions between the facility engineering staff and experts from their suppliers. COVID-19 has disrupted this in a large way and forced a greater reliance on remote methods to tackle issues.
In a Fluid Power Journal article, Keeping Customers Engaged in a Changing World, Emerson president for the Discrete & Industrial business segment, Hakan Erdamar, shares his thoughts on how these interactions have transformed.
Hakan opens framing the issues businesses face:
Businesses and livelihoods have been disrupted around the globe, presenting challenges beyond those brought by new technologies, climate and demographic change, and government regulations. But with those challenges come opportunities to strengthen commerce and our relationships and communities.
He highlights Emerson’s role as a key supplier to manufacturers.
As an essential business that supports critical infrastructure, we have numerous strategies in place to safeguard our employees’ health and ensure that customer interaction is safe.
One example cited is with sales support:
…we successfully moved our entire sales support staff to a remote model during the height of the pandemic and leveraged the technology to train and expand capabilities. And we actively engage with our customers to assess when we can safely resume face-to-face collaboration.
The pandemic has disrupted supply chains and altered supply and demand for many products.
We’ve pivoted to meet the evolving needs of our customers by adjusting and prioritizing production to help ease supply-chain burdens caused by demand ramp-up in key categories. Our facilities are operating with minimal downtime, and we’ve implemented extensive safety protocols.
Technologies have enabled virtual problem solving.
Our priority remains being available to collaborate with our customers and partners on the operational, safety, and efficiency challenges they face. And that’s why we’ve prioritized updates to our website, developed interactive content, and made investments to keep our sales teams well equipped and our engineers accessible.
Read the article for more on how training, online learning, and other ways business interactions have changed to mitigate the loss of face-to-face interactions to deliver the help and support manufacturers need to continue to operate safely, reliably, efficiently and sustainably.
Visit the Fluid Control & Pneumatics section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies, solutions and services to improve your manufacturing performance. You can also connect and interact with other experts in this area in the Fluid Control & Pneumatics group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
