As crazy as these times are (and who would argue otherwise?) it is precisely during times of churn that interesting things emerge. Two personal friends make the point for me.
Dr. Jeff Ahrstrom, with years of top executive leadership in manufacturing, is now part of the executive team at Ingersoll. Jeff is not only a Marine-trained doer, he is a loyal friend and has done many things to help people (me included) along their paths. The Ingersoll release notes:
“Ingersoll Machine Tools announced that Dr. Jeff Ahrstrom has joined the company as its Chief Operating Officer. The Rockford, IL based company stated that Dr. Ahrstrom is joining the company at a time when its growth requires a keen eye focused on customer satisfaction. Ingersoll CEO Chip Storie said, ‘Jeff will bring his years of experience in building large, solution-based machine tools to Rockford, allowing us to implement practices that will have us deliver the highest quality to our customers.’ Ahrstrom brings more than 25 years of machine tool experience to Ingersoll, and most recently served as CEO of Berndorf Band’s USA operations. Dr. Ahrstrom stated that his passion for manufacturing and the machine tool industry made Ingersoll a perfect fit.”
Meanwhile, Ingersoll is transforming its company to comprise subtractive (traditional chipping or machining) and additive (think additive manufacturing or larger-scale 3D printing). I’ll be visiting that company soon, and perhaps readers will enjoy an Under the Hood segment as a result. Congratulations, Jeff.
Going for the desktop
Another friend, Maarten Coerman, has made a most interesting transition. Previously the president of SafanDarley B.V. in Lochem, Netherlands, he now is co-founder of Comvay360, doing business development for this new software firm. Comvay360 is a multifunction communication platform for organization, and it’s aimed at small- and medium-sized companies. You can use Comvay 360 to create meeting rooms based on teams (or project-based with multiple teams and members), scheduled or on-the-fly video meetings, HR communication functions, company updates, social communication, and much more. (Fifth Wave Manufacturing is a test site for Comvay360, and we really like it.) Think of Microsoft Teams without the structural overhead and you have an estimation of what it’s about.
Although Maarten has served in leadership roles in manufacturing for 20 years, “I realized that there is a huge need in the field of communication, to be able to best connect and collaborate in mainly small- and medium-sized organizations,” he says. “That is especially true now, since many companies have switched to a more hybrid organization, due to the pandemic—which meanwhile has turned out to be our new reality.”
Best of luck to Maarten and his co-founder, George Kempkes, on bringing this new software to market. One of our favorite things about it is that it doesn’t require a big background environment to use; you manage it the way you work, not the other way around. They are starting in The Netherlands and will enter worldwide markets in the coming year.
More information: https://en.machinetools.camozzi.com/
More information: https://www.comvay360.com