As an application engineer, I automate as many processes in the factory as possible. It’s how we reduce errors and make processes fully reproducible. Whether you run a process for the first or the tenth time, it should produce the exact same result. Part of that is configuring the automation, but the most important thing is working with my colleagues in the factory. These new solutions make their work easier, but require a different way of thinking.

The big challenge of our work at IGS is to achieve extremely high accuracies. And that’s what I enjoy most about working here. I’m not the kind of person to ever say something isn’t possible. We’ve made parts with unusual shapes and strange edges with a tolerance of just a couple of microns. It might’ve been months of work, but in the end we got it done.

One of the highlights of my time at IGS? Two years back, we acquired a five-axis high speed milling machine. It was the first in Europe. We needed to fully test and fine-tune that machine to achieve our accuracies. You need to start from scratch and have to learn every aspect of a machine. How does the machine react? Are there any deviations? What is the influence of temperature? Together with the Japanese supplier, we worked out everything in great detail and created guidelines on how to get the machine within the correct range. It took us a year and a half, but I loved working on it.