Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1284035
48 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2020 we have with COVID-19, but we already had a lot of those things in place. And this happened very suddenly. In my case, I went from working in the office on a Friday afternoon to not going into the office the follow- ing Monday in March. All of this meant mak- ing sudden adjustments. Fortunately, it wasn't a big change in the way that we had to approach things; we just had to focus solely on the remote support aspect of it. It's about utilizing the tools that we've had for some time. We have a very good setup with our help-desk arrangement and the incom- ing tickets. A lot of that support happened via that method. Many people prefer to avoid phone calls and go to a messaging type of sys- tem instead. That has always worked very effectively for those needs. Then, there are things like installations, where we basically were doing dedicated support. We'd have a field service engineer assigned to a customer. We use digital aids, and the methods that we have to connect with them, and various doc- umentation sources, supplemental videos, etc. to accomplish those objectives. And tying all those pieces together has helped us meet the various emergency support needs. But we also had some people traveling when it was an absolute necessity for those instances that could only be handled with the on-site sup- port, as may have been appropriate, given the travel challenges and restrictions, and poli- cies adopted by our customers as we all have adjusted to the situation. The beauty of it is we didn't have to reinvent everything. We just had to take slightly modi- fied or enhanced approaches to how we use the tools we already had, and better focus them on meeting the various extraordinary needs of the sudden situation that we came upon. Johnson: Have you completely eliminated the need to see a customer on-site? Armstrong: We haven't completely eliminated that, but I don't think that should be the over- all objective. Given the circumstances we have amidst the COVID-19 challenges, there have been a few cases where on-site customer vis- its were necessary. Some things were put off because our customers themselves were try- ing to adjust and figure out what they were going to do. Many of our customers were get- ting involved in this sudden demand for pro- duction for PPE and ventilator devices, which suddenly became so important and weren't in a sufficient supply when this situation started. They had needs beyond what would typically happen with the restrictions that were put in place. And we had to help them meet those needs as an essential business. It was a matter of just utilizing various pieces we had and making a few adjustments to fit the customer situation. We found a way. Through a combination of the various tools and methods that we already had in place, as well as better focusing them on that type of arrangement, we met those needs. It's not something I would see ever going away; rather, it has been a little preview into what we can do in the future to enhance support in general, or if we're faced with other such circumstances again. Johnson: Do you see an increase in face-to-face support as things eventually return to normal? Armstrong: Certainly. We are already resuming some face-to-face support on a more normal basis, and there is a lot of value in that. No sit- uation is ever 100% perfect from every aspect, but there's a great need for the on-site activ- ities. With training, there's a lot you can do remotely, but there's also a lot more that comes from hands-on experience. And you could com- pare the situations and options even before COVID-19 challenges, like somebody coming to one of our KYA training centers—outside of the production environment and without those interruptions—versus trying to do that type of training on the factory floor. There, you nor- mally use the production machines and have a lot of interruptions just from the environment, with people being pulled away, and, hence, Quintin Armstrong