17.01.2023 / Christoph Müller

Out of the Office – into the Machine Park!

Muller Martini offers numerous professions at its headquarters in Zofingen. Among them are some (I'm thinking of our finance and HR specialists, for example) who have little or no connection with the machines we build. For them, we have recently added special training courses to our program – with the aim of getting to know and understand our machines.
 
"For they know not what they do," is a well-known quote from the Bible. "For many do not know all that our machines do", you could paraphrase the saying to the Muller Martini world. In fact, we have employees in Zofingen who, due to their professional activities, have little to do with saddle stitchers, Connex, Finishing 4.0 and Smart Factory. Account managers, for example. "My job are numbers and I'm therefore far away from the machines," a colleague working in accounting told me the other day.
 

The aim of the training courses is to get our employees who are not directly involved with the machines excited about our broad portfolio.

That this should be remedied had been in the back of my mind for some time. It's true that we have offered machine presentations for employees in the past – but only sporadically and mainly before trade shows to present newly developed machines. However, I would like to regularly show which innovative Finishing 4.0 solutions we offer our customers worldwide.
 
Okay from the HR boss
So a few months ago, I went to our HR boss with the idea of offering special training sessions of between half an hour and two hours for our employees who don't have much to do with technology. She was immediately enthusiastic and so last fall we put the first five courses out to tender:
 
  • Digital Saddle Stitcher with Connex Workflow (Connex LC Pro & LC Finishing).
  • Online showroom & YouTube channel from Muller Martini
  • MPOWER
  • Prinova saddle stitcher (standard demonstration) with JDF/JMF integration
  • Printing processes and signatures

The aim of the training courses is to get our employees who are not directly involved with the machines excited about our broad portfolio. I show them how our equipment works, what Finishing 4.0 and Smart Factory mean, and what our Connex workflow system can do. Our modern Print Finishing Center in Zofingen with its large machine park, where we also offer demos for customers and training courses for customers and service technicians, is of course the perfect location for this.
 
90 participants at the very first training session
I was delighted that we received 90 registrations for the very first course "Digital saddle stitchers". That proves how great the interest here in Zofingen is. We even had over 100 registrations for printing processes and signatures. Since we have a maximum group size of ten people (which makes it easier for us to respond to questions), we hold the highly popular training courses several times. I was particularly pleased that one of our apprentice trainers recently attended a course with a group of apprentices. After all, we want to get the young skilled workers excited about our technology so that one or two of them will stay with our company after their apprenticeship.
 
The response to our new offer has been extremely positive. The fact that a colleague from the finance department attended a second course right after the first one proves that we are hitting a nerve with our employees. Now she will probably not be at a loss for a quick-witted answer when she is asked among her colleagues what exactly Muller Martini does...
 
Can you also imagine working at Muller Martini? On our Shape the Future career portal you will find all the information you need – and perhaps even the job that suits you.
 
Your
Christoph Muller,
Head of Muller Martini Print Finishing Center