Technologists
Bühler’s value lies in its generations of processing experience. It is the Bühler technologists that translate that knowledge into practical advantage so that our customers can maximize performance and quality. We meet some of the people who are the face of Bühler, traveling the globe building those all-important relationships that are so critical to successful business partnerships.
Stuart Spear, August 2023
No matter what contractual relationship companies have with each other, it’s human relations that ultimately drive successful business partnerships. Wherever you are in the world and whatever your business, when you buy a Bühler solution you receive expert technical support, either remotely or on site, for as long as it takes to resolve production challenges. Different Bühler businesses may have different titles for their customer support teams, but they all have one thing in common: these technical experts have an invaluable insight into and knowledge of your industry. They have spent years on the front- line seeing how companies operate in real time, the challenges they face, and the solutions available to them. What may be a new difficulty for the customer, is something a technologist may have seen in many different iterations in plants operating in all corners of the world. They have the skills and knowledge to make sure the inevitable challenges that arise in any manufacturing process are resolved as painlessly and efficiently as possible.
Emily Cardoso is a mechanical engineer who joined Bühler Leybold Optics in Alzenau, Germany as a technologist five years ago, specializing in optics. She is a problem solver who offers a mix of service upgrades, sales support, and retrofit upgrades.
“As the name suggests, the role of the technologist is to understand the technology and so to know what is going on inside the machine,” says Cardoso. “For example, in my field a customer might want to save energy by changing the pumps that create the vacuum. My role is to do the calculations to see whether with this speed limit and this pumping limit it is achievable without compromising standards.”
Leybold Optics operates in a range of markets. For example, it produces the machines that apply coatings to architectural glass that help reduce the energy costs of heating and cooling. Ophthalmic and precision optics, the markets that Cardoso supports, includes optical solutions that enable face recognition in mobile phones, sensors for the car industry, diagnostic solutions within the life sciences, and coating technology for the semiconductor industry.
What goes on inside the machine is pure physics and chemistry, and each of our customers needs a unique solution that is very specific to their requirements.
Emily Cardoso,
Mechanical Engineer Bühler Leybold Optics
It is a highly complex, fast evolving, and competitive sector. Technical upgrades along with energy and waste reduction are the most common customer requirements as research and development drives competition. Cardoso describes working in very high-tech sterile environments requiring strict protocols with high levels of security as companies protect their competitive advantages.
“Precision optics is a really high-tech business,” explains Cardoso. “What goes on inside the machine is pure physics and chemistry, and each of our customers needs a unique solution that is very specific to their requirements.”
Cardoso supports customers globally. Working in such a diverse and non-standardized sector means that her technical expertise is needed to formulate service contracts or support sales teams when dealing with highly specialized engineering solutions. One role that she finds particularly rewarding is when a customer has a totally new production requirement. “This is where it can get really exciting because we are not limited by standardization and so we end up working in partnership with the customer discovering what is possible,” explains Cardoso.
In the more traditional business sphere of milling, technological change has also profoundly impacted the industry. However, the pace of change is less frantic. Guido Thalmann, Process Expert for Bühler Milling Solutions has decades of experience of the milling industry.
Based at the company headquarters in Uzwil, Switzerland, he is the start-up engineer on typically large-scale milling operations globally. His role is to get customers from the point of installation to full operation by training staff, setting the machine parameters, setting the software, and resolving all those teething problems that inevitably arise with a new installation. He can spend up to a year at a customer site, returning home every three months to recharge his batteries.
Thalmann started his apprenticeship in milling in 1974. He was recruited and trained during the time when René Bühler was Chairman of Bühler’s Board of Directors. “I remember René telling us that when we visit a customer, we must always remember that we are the calling card of the company,” says Thalmann. He believes it is a piece of advice that stands to this day.
When he walks into a new plant it is his years of experience that cement the Bühler brand. He understands that he is an expression of generations of acquired milling knowledge. He believes it is a piece of advice that stands to this day. When he walks into a new plant it is his years of experience that cement the Bühler brand. He understands that he is an expression of generations of acquired milling knowledge.
In recent years he has been setting up mills in Venezuela, the Middle East, Bangladesh, the United States, and Australia. Not only is Thalmann able to support customers with a wealth of knowledge acquired from different operating practices globally, but he also has a historical perspective on the industry. Having been a front-seat witness to the changes to the milling industry, he has watched as the old milling skills have disappeared, with smaller mills being consolidated into larger milling operations.
In my view, the most important question for a mill is: ‘what is too much digitalization and what is too little?’ The skill is finding the right balance.
Guido Thalmann,
Process Expert Milling Solutions at Bühler
In recent years the most profound change in the milling sector has been the arrival of digital processing technology. While it can be a major benefit to producers, he cautions that it all comes down to how it is applied. “My advice to anyone setting up a mill is to keep it simple. In my experience, when people become unsure of what they are doing it is usually because things have become too complicated,” says Thalmann. “In my view, the most important question for a mill is: ‘What is too much digitalization and what is too little?’ The skill is to find the right balance.”
Guido Siegrist has a similar role to Thalmann but works in Bühler’s Value Nutrition business. Based in Uzwil, he sets up pasta plants for customers to optimize all the production parameters. When going to big pasta companies, he often works alongside the customer’s own experts. With new operations, he provides more of his support, expertise, and advice. For example, the raw materials used have a major influence on the quality of the final product. In the search for the perfectly uniform pasta shape, it is important to understand this.
Every commissioning job is different and even now I am still learning new things. No single recipe works for every customer.
Guido Siegrist,
Process Expert Value Nutrition at Bühler
“For customers who are relatively new to the business or may have been badly advised by other companies in the past, my job is to show them where and how they can optimize their processes to get the best end product.
That can involve managing expectations. Total uniformity is just not possible. Sometimes I have even shown them their competitor’s pasta to demonstrate this,” says Siegrist. It is in situations such as this that Siegrist falls back on his 33 years of experience with Bühler in the pasta industry, working both in machine manufacturing and plant commissioning. He travels the globe supporting producers wherever pasta is eaten. “Every commissioning job is different and even now I am still learning new things. No single recipe works for every customer, so it’s always a challenge,” says Siegrist, who considers himself a blend of food scientist and machine specialist. “For the first 10 years I was working on the manufacture of the machines and then I learned the food science on the job from every plant I commission.”
In the chocolate industry customers have their own closely guarded recipes and so it often takes a team of technologists and food scientists, sometimes working in one of Bühler’s Application & Training Centers, to see how the recipe mix can be best achieved on Bühler solutions.
Gilbert Müller, based in Uzwil, is Senior Process Engineer in the Chocolate & Coffee business. He gets involved with the customer early on during the sales process as part of the technical support team. He is also responsible for commissioning new plants or new processes, which means he sometimes sets up a plant based on his own technological recommendations.
“In the chocolate industry the best-case sales and quotation process is when the sales team, food technologist, and process engineers are working together in a forward-looking manner to match the customer’s variables like fat content, cocoa powder, and sugar to process and machine,” explains Müller. “Of course, when you find you are commissioning a plant that you designed the flow sheet for, that is when you really get direct feedback on your own design.”
Things can get complex when 50 machines need to interact with each other, and everything needs to come together in one process. It involves a lot of teamwork.
Gilbert Müller,
Senior Process Engineer Chocolate & Coffee at Bühler
Müller works closely with food technologists and commissioning engineers. When product quality is not what was expected, it takes both knowledge of the machine processes and of food science to work out where things might have gone wrong. In this industry the complexity lies in the interfaces between different production processes. “Things can get complex when 50 machines need to interact with each other, and everything needs to come together in one process. It involves a lot of teamwork between different specialists,” says Müller.
When commissioning bakery goods, using chocolate as an ingredient in the subsequent processes, Müller might get involved in every stage from raw materials to packaging, wherever the chocolate can have an impact on product processing. This means that he sometimes visits a plant for over a year, spending a couple of months on site and returning when needed. In such an interrelated food manufacturing process one change can have implications throughout the plant and require on-going support.
With the growth in electrical vehicle sales has come increasing demand for die casting. These solutions supply structural car parts made from molten aluminum to the large car manufacturers. Bühler’s die-casting solutions are installed into production cells and work seamlessly with other manufacturing processes like sprayers, presses, and construction robots. They produce highly accurate and ever-larger lightweight structural car parts such as chassis sub-units, shock towers, longitudinal members, tailgates, or battery housings.
Livia Thalmann is a Field Service Technician for Bühler’s Die Casting business, based in Uzwil, Switzerland. She joined the team from the Swiss apprenticeship scheme. Her role is to install new machines, fit upgrades, and service existing machines. During installations she is part of a team of two or three, but when she is fixing a problem, she operates on her own to minimize the cost to the customer. This is a highly pressurized industry so the time between the customer’s first call and her arrival on site must be kept to a minimum. It also requires a high degree of cooperation as she works with technologists from other companies supporting other cell processes as well as in-house technical support teams.
“When I arrive, the customer is often very stressed because they cannot solve the problem themselves. They need to get the machine operating fast, so everything is very time sensitive. Most die-casting machines operate 24 hours a day. They lose money if they are not operating,” Thalmann says. “I have to calm things down, step back, and work on a plan. I will already have an overview of the problem because I have been talking to our support teams. Last month I arrived at a Swiss customer and found the problem in 10 minutes because I had a plan in place and knew it was one of three things.”
It’s important I get on with people on site very quickly because I need their help, so I think you need a particular type of personality to do this job well.
Livia Thalmann,
Field Service Technician Die Casting at Bühler
When things are not solved so quickly then situations can become tense. An important part of the customer support role is therefore interpersonal skills. To operate efficiently on site requires cooperation and everyone pulling together. “It’s important I get on with people on site very quickly because I need their help, so I think you need a particular type of personality to do this job well,” says Thalmann. Understanding how different cultures communicate is also key. Sometimes getting to the root of an issue in a plant is difficult, but Thalmann takes the time to ask questions until she can determine the source of the problem.
Thalmann also keeps an eye out for ways of minimizing waste, with a view to reducing the impact on the environment. “Many of our customers work in very energy intensive industries,” she explains. “From my perspective on the plant floor, I can sometimes see savings that could be made. For example, it is not necessary to heat the die while I am working. I like to highlight the opportunities to optimize processes.”
Verena Mühlberger agrees that technologists who work at customer sites globally need to be culturally sensitive. “In terms of character, I am rather direct. When I am working in a culture that is less direct, I adjust,” she says. “Being adaptable helps me to involve the customer in the process when conducting experiments. This means that I ask the customer what they think and what their experience has been or if they agree with the decisions I make regarding the process.”
Mühlberger is a Process Engineer in Grinding & Dispersing. Based in Uzwil, she trials and sets up bead mills globally for businesses involved in ink solutions, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, coatings, and battery slurry. It is a diverse range of industries and she understands the requirements of each sector. Her role is to set up the machines and run the trials to ensure the customer is getting the desired high-quality product and performance from their bead mill. This is where Bühler’s generations of processing experience become apparent, and it applies to all the customer support teams that travel the globe supporting many very diverse industries.
Throughout the entire process, from conducting trials to installing the machine, we build close relationships with our customers, giving them a deeper insight into their operations.
Verena Mühlberger,
Process Engineer Grinding & Dispersing at Bühler
“When we visit the customer, they get first-hand access to Bühler expertise. We are not just setting up the machines, we are giving them all our knowledge so they can achieve a first-class product at maximum productivity on their bead mill,” says Mühlberger. “Throughout the entire process, from conducting trials to installing the machine, we build close relationships with the customers, giving them a deeper insight into their operations. That is how they develop confidence in our knowledge, and it is why they come back to us for further product development and technical advice.”
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