Enhanced service and support agility for Trumpf

For the high-technology metalworking specialist Trumpf, based in Luton, this parallel path has always underpinned its success and the company is now announced a major structural change in its aftersales organisational structure.

Following extensive consultation with its customers and utilising the latest agile management concepts, Trumpf is moving away from centralised service and technical support management, in favour of a regionalised structure.

“We want to be as close to our customers as possible, both as a company and as a management team. Communication is fundamental to understanding customer needs and reacting to them,” says technical director Lee Moakes “And we still believe the best form of communication is person-to-person and preferably, face-to-face.”

One would not consider the size of the UK requiring Trumpf managers to decentralise but with average motorway speeds around the country ranging from 48mph, at best, to 24mph this move is clearly the best way forward. As the UK traffic network slows so does any company’s efficiency, capacity and ability to implement change; only its carbon footprint increases.

Trumpf UK describes its restructured service and support department as a decentralised – centralised organisation. So, what does that mean?

Centralised divisional departments

With a more horizontal management structure, senior and middle managers have increased capacity to focus on steering the business and implement change with greater agility than before. The centralised function is also still required to enable high level decisions to be made face-to-face and to facilitate planning and communication between the Trumpf Groups.

Decentralised regional management

Opening-up three regional management positions brings the management team closer to the customers and to the technicians to whom they report. Each regional manager has a team of nine technical engineers and 200-300 customers. This provides an increase in communication, efficiency and focus for customers and technicians alike. It allows greater understanding of the specific needs and requirements within their region.

In February 2017, Nathan Stephenson became technical manager for the North and Neil Hinson, the technical manager for the Midlands. Graham Jessop became general manager of Technical Services in November 2016 but is already a familiar face to UK customers. His career with Trumpf has spanned many roles in software support, applications, consultancy, demonstrations and training.

To ensure maximum agility of the service department only regional, maintenance and the in-house technical managers report to the general manager of technical services.

The in-house technical manager is another newly-created post at Trumpf UK that amalgamates all internal technical services positions under one management role. This means that the software, applications and service personnel based in Luton form a single structure. This ensures greater alignment of this department with product development; Trumpf machines and intelligent software are increasingly symbiotic with the growth of Industry 4.0, IoT and the Smart factory.

Benjamin Weller from Trumpf GmbH + Co KG in Germany joined Trumpf UK on 1^st June 2017 as in-house technical manager at Trumpf UK. He began working for the company in February 2017 implementing new processes and improvements within this department.

A new addition to the technical services structure, in response to the growing interest in Industry 4.0 and factory connectivity, is the creation of a TruConnect Industry 4.0 and IT specialist role. And in recognition of the need to decentralise training Trumpf UK has also appointed its first regionalised software and machine operation trainer.

The streamlining of the Trumpf UK service structure is also complemented by a single contact number for all support matters: 01582 725335.

Trumpf www.trumpf.com