Very excited and curios since June 1976
I am born 19:th of May 1948. From June 1976 I worked for SEW-EURODRIVE and I officially retired 2016-06-30. That were 40 years to celebrate at SEW-EURODRIVE. I started my career at SEWs branch office in Skellefteå 1976 as a regional manager and worked as such for 15 years.
Our company grew by taking more and more of the market share and new products were introduced. All this led us to start up an application center in Jönköping, where our head quarter is located. Me my self was among the applicants and I got the job as Technical manager at SEW-EURODRIVE Sweden 1991.
I came from a bigger company in Stockholm and became employed probably at the most northern places that SEW has a technical/sales office. Because we were few, two salesmen and a secretary it was different to my earlier experience of office life and size. Mostly one of us two salesman were out at business trip every week. So, it was at the beginning a very quiet and calm experience...
Personal mile stones
Some of the mile stones at SEW-EURODRIVE that I have been personally involved in, more or less, are at first the introduction of our frequency inverters at the beginning of 80:ths. I was very excited and curious about these new products and read and learn everything possible that was to be found about its technics. My first hand-touch and training for our MC300 was at the customer where they paid the commissioning I made and succeeded well.
Next mile stone were our servomotors type DY and servo axes type MOVIDYN® of which we in Sweden sold 50 units of the almost first that came out from our production line at the beginning of 90:ths and they are still running at Hippodrome Theatre in Malmö Sweden.
Furthermore, after more than one year of negotiations, testing and hard competition from several suppliers, VOLVO Automations accepted us in the midst of 90:ths as there supplier of MOVIDYN® and DY-motors. During that time of MOVIDYN®/DY we sold over 1200 units to this company. After this epoch we also succeeded in changing over to MOVIDRIVE® and CT/CV- motors which ended in another selling success at the same customer.
As an application engineer one has to be prepared to do business/service- trip, at a short notice
I have been traveling quite a lot in so called remedial measures to help customers with problems in their applications. Mostly in Sweden but also countries as Finland, Norway, Denmark, Island, England, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Morocco and even USA. For many it sounds like we are preferential people, but I would say it’s all about job and not always so pleasant.
At first as an application engineer one has to be prepared to do business/service- trip, at a short notice, even if it’s far away.
My visit in US was for instant like this:
Inside it was -32C outside +28C
A customer needed immediate remedial/commissioning help for high bay cranes in US/Texas Houston. They thought, but could not make the commissioning fully out. Thursday afternoon we got this request and Friday morning the flight took off.
We were working inside a cool store at Walmart’s distribution center. Inside it was -32C outside +28C. We were dressed like astronauts but could not stay inside more than 20 min. Outside we could not stay longer neither because of the thick layer of clothing we had on. One of our PCs broke down. We couldn’t have them in the store house longer than our selves. The power cables were as unbendable steel wires. After the 8:th day we were quit exhausted (working between 7 – 22). We had some hours left before the flight back home, so our host wanted to take us for some sightseeing in Huston, but we kindly refused. This was ok, but when flying back to Europe we had an exchange student group onboard. Guess if we were happy?
I have experienced a tremendous growth and development at SEW, both with its staff and product folio. The warm family atmosphere and skilled nice colleagues have put their landmarks deep inside of me. You will all remain in my remembrance and prayers.