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46 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2020 Interview by Nolan Johnson I-CONNECT007 Koh Young's Quintin Armstrong, senior man- ager of technical services and applications for the Americas, discusses the work that has been going on at the company around field support, including pre- and post-sales support training, and how those areas have been affected by COVID-19. Nolan Johnson: Quintin, for those who don't know you, what's your role? Quintin Armstrong: I joined Koh Young in August of 2019. My role is to enhance our organiza- tional procedures and methods in our approach to customer support, as well as to better har- monize our modus operandi throughout our Americas operations. It's always a continu- ous improvement type of objective between the various different pieces of the operation, technical services in the field, general support, applications type of activities—both pre- and post-sale—and the demo room type of activ- ities. Some of that would include things like evaluation activities at customer sites, as well as training activities—both in our KYA offices, and at customer sites, or even at representa- tives' office sites. I focus on each of these different areas, tie them all in together, try to unify our support approach, and look at improvement opportu- nities within the organization. We have offices throughout the Americas, including in the U.S., Mexico, and down through Central Amer- ica and South America, with the main markets there being Brazil and Argentina. We have a series of reps, and we have a lot of these sub- site facilities set up there for the same pur- poses. It's about bringing all that together and meeting the overall objective to best serve our customers in every aspect. Johnson: Given the current situation and the restrictions that accompany it, how do you service the customer differently? Armstrong: To be honest, it's not a huge dif- ference in the way that we always have done things. As technology evolves, some of these tools make it easier to do some things more remotely. Those are utilized, and they have been even before the onset of the situation that Improving Tech Support During a Pandemic Solder paste inspection.