New needs open up new potential in automation

Proven efficiency of smart working

Engineer Simone Bassani, COO WITTENSTEIN SpA, specialist in transmissions, complete range of gearboxes and servoactuators.

CoVid has modified and will modify many aspects of professional daily life in all areas, including ours. The change in structure will lead to new ways of using, selling, automating and enjoying the services. Attention and reactivity in this phase must be particularly high to catch and anticipate new trends.

Smart working extended to all employees thanks to previous investments in portable technology has allowed WITTENSTEIN SPA to carry on, even during the lockdown.

The sudden transition to the new mode has not been "traumatic" and has made it possible to maintain high efficiency while limiting costs, without so far resorting to social safety nets. All protocols have been adopted to guarantee employees maximum protection, from personal equipment to organizational measures in the warehouse, workshop and offices.

The lockdown occurred between the first and second quarters so that, looking at the market, we expect a drop in turnover in the following half year. Projected on an annual basis, losses should account for around one third of our turnover.

Several sectors are still stuck but others, especially those related to the direct or indirect production of PPE, have benefited from new opportunities. The production of PPE will perhaps impact only in the medium-short term for OEMs, but the other measures that must be taken could open up more long-term prospects, if not real new fields of application.

An example? Access controls and social distancing, advanced logistics for e-commerce and all the tasks that can be entrusted to more or less collaborative robots that would have had much slower growth rates without the pandemic.

With our state-of-the-art mechanical and mechatronic solutions, we are moving to enter these sectors promptly, also proposing our services to manufacturers who are having to solve advanced automation problems for the first time.

We have gone from customer meetings to smart working videocalls, but once we became familiar with the new means, we found we could advise and support customers even more quickly, even if human contact is missing!

The availability of the products remained good and only during the acute phase of the lockdown did the shipments in transit take a few more days.

We therefore look to 2020 with the awareness that it will be a year of transition, with inevitably reduced turnover, but with the hope that it will bring new ways of working, producing and automating that will give future growth opportunities.