Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1210212
60 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2020 that they didn't make any stress. They did not do any crazy stuff. The young engineers learned a lot from them, but they did not make any trouble. Shaughnessy: Recent grads are dying to try things out that they just learned, and they want to see if they can push the envelope. Löwer: Yes. But depending on the company, it's hard to push that envelope—not because man- agement is stopping you, but because the en- gineers are stuck in a mindset. That happens a lot. I don't know whether it's a typical Ger- man thing. In the olden days, when somebody learned a job or skill, such as carpentry, they had to go to other cities to learn from other masters so as not to be stuck in one master's ideas and ways of thinking. I wish that were true for students today. Too often, I see that the students go to one company to earn some money during their studies, write their thesis there, and then af- ter their degree, they go to a company for their first and last job. The company takes them be- cause they know them, so they will get stuck in one kind of mindset. That kind of engineers will not change until they are forced to, and that is not good for the company. Matties: Alex, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Löwer: Thank you. DESIGN007 example, the soldering process is optimized for production. Automated production is an is- sue, depending on the company. On the oth- er hand, companies that do 100 pieces a year don't care. It's much more work for them to optimize for automated production. Matties: You have a unique perspective because you service a lot of companies. What advice would you give to an organization that's look- ing to contract with a designer for their work? Löwer: Ask them for their ideas and listen to them—especially if it's a designer who has ex- perience in different companies and parts of the industry. Usually, they can give you new and different perspectives and ideas on how to handle problems, issues, systems, and even processes. Shaughnessy: Then, it's not just tribal knowl- edge because a lot of companies have their own way of doing it. Löwer: Exactly. Many companies have their own way of designing. I am not talking about the respective process, but more like the style of the engineers, and they want to stick to it. One of the saddest things I've seen was when I worked at a company for close to a year, and they had some new engineers coming in who were fresh from university. They were inter- ested and curious to see a new world, but the first thing the older engineers made sure of was